Edo State Governor, Godwin Obaseki, has said his administration is going to revive technical education in the state and will soon set up technical colleges in all the local government areas of the state.
He has also directed all junior secondary schools in the state to henceforth be under the supervision of State Universal Basic Education Board, SUBEB.
Speaking during the third anniversary of Edo Basic Education Sector Transformation, EdoBEST, and the unveiling of EdoBEST 2.0, Obaseki said that with the result recorded in education sector at basic level in the last three years, it was logical to extend it to secondary and tertiary institutions.
“My administration launched EdoBEST three years ago to deliver holistic transformation to our basic education sector, I am elated that in spite of COVID-19 and school closures, the programme recorded significant progress as our pupils are now learning much more and at a rate similar to more developed countries.
“Studies show that Edo State has accelerated reading fluency for our children to 70 percent that of high-income countries, compared to less than 30 percent for Nigeria and other low and middle-income countries globally.
“These results are remarkable and demonstrate that we are on the path to global competitiveness,” he said.
He explained that the decision to have the transformation across all education value chain informed the unveiling of EdoBEST 2.0, “having satisfied with the progress recorded in our primary school in the last three years, we need to extend it to our secondary schools, technical colleges and tertiary institutions.
“All our JSS classes will now come under SUBEB, when students complete primary six they automatically go on to Junior Secondary School and they are going to get the same standard. We are also going to have more technical schools with a minimum of one technical school in each of our local government.”
Corroborating his views, Executive Chairman, Edo State Universal Basic Education Board, Dr. Joan Osa Oviawe, said that since the inception of the Obaseki administration, they had resolved to transform the fortunes of Edo State through education.
“A key ingredient of EdoBEST’s progress is teacher growth and development, at the centre of our success is our teachers and their ability to succeed when empowered to do so. Also Edo SUBEB has undergone a transformation to be able to deliver the needed change through EdoBEST.
“We are proud of how far we have come with EdoBEST, our results have not gone unnoticed by parents throughout Edo State. Public trust in the public education system is now at an all-time high, we recorded a 20 percent increase in public school enrollment in three years due to the EdoBEST programme.”
Speaking on the programme impact, a teacher from Obaseki Primary School, Benin, Mrs. Rosemary Ezehiwele, said that EdoBEST had helped her to impact positively on pupils, adding,”some of the children who could not read and write before are reading and writing.
As teacher, the use of computer has helped me in all ramifications, both at home and in school.
“I am proud to say I am a digital teacher. We don’t have to write lesson notes. All we have to do is come to class, disseminate the notes to the children and we can see that they are happy to learn and make them want to learn more.”
VANGUARD
