Education
GOV. Godwin Obaseki on Sunday said his administration had transformed the state’s education sector through a number of interventions and initiatives.
The governor ,who spoke with newsmen in Lagos, said his government had used technology ,especially use of e-learning ,to make the sector better.
According to him , the government has procured and distributed teaching tablets to all instructors in the state ,to enhance learning outcomes.
He said the state’s e-learning initiatives had attracted national and international attention.
Obaseki, who bagged the 2024 Digital Governor of the Year (Public Sector Automation) by the Bureau of Public Service Reforms (BPSR), said that much could be achieved in all sectors through digitisation.
He said that his government had shown huge commitment to sustaining its technology-driven transformation in education.
Obaseki emphasised the important roles of teachers in driving the transformative impact of technology in education.
“If a society is going to digitise, it starts from government. Right now in Edo, our teachers cannot teach without digital devices. Each teacher in Edo has a tablet.
“That tablet, is a handheld device. Every day a teacher comes to school, he or she must synchronise his own with that of the headteacher. If a teacher does not, it means he or she is not in school that day. So, I can tell that you are not in school.
“So, we have dropped the rate of absenteeism in our schools. And the truth is that, if a teacher is not in class, the child will not learn.
“Beyond that, that device takes attendance of the school children. So we know the child is in school or not in school. We have data.
“It also has your lesson notes that you deliver that day. The tools also help the teacher to motivate the children.
“So, our children want to go to school because they are learning. We have gone totally digital,” he said.
Obaseki said that EdoBEST initiative had earned the state both national and international acclaim for its innovative approach to education.
Stating the reason for EdoBEST, the governor said that when he came in 2016, one of the biggest issues confronting the state was human trafficking and illegal migration.
According to him, In February 2017, the International Office on Migration came with a report that showed that there were over 30,000 Edo boys and girls in Libya, trying to cross.
“So if you had 30,000 children or youths in one place in Libya crossing the Sahara, can you imagine how many would have died together
“And there was no boat crossing that had an accident that you didn’t find our boys and girls inside it. So there was a process of massive repatriation.
“As they came, we received them, and documented them. We got the data to find out the root cause of this mass migration of people from home.
“And one thing that came out was a poor education system. Education systems had broken.
“So, we knew that the main thing we had to do was tackle the issue of education. We need to go and fix it, ” he said.
Obaseki added that one of the issues discovered was “actually teachers”.
“There was so much absenteeism.The teachers were recruited politically.
“And once we started, we changed the pedagogy- the way we teach the children in schools. No corporal punishment.
“They don’t beat any child in our schools. They encourage them. They make school exciting. So, we changed the face and shape of education.
“We are talking about almost 400,000 children,” he said.
Obaseki noted that he just came back to the country on Friday from the Global Partnership on Education, a side event of the World Bank, to share the experience of what the state had done in the education sector.
“They are countries that have been nominated as accelerator countries in education, countries who are partnering in education reform globally, about eight or nine countries.
“Edo is the only sub-national on that list, like a proxy for Nigeria.” he said.
According to Obaseki, his administration fixed basic education from primary one to six and from Junior Secondary School (JSS) one to six, which, by the law, constitutes basic education
He said that since some students never proceed to Senior Secondary School (SSS), efforts was made to incorporate vocational trainings in JSS to cater for this category of students
He said that school children were no longer dropping out of school anymore “because once we catch them from primary one, we are holding them until JSS three,so you are not dropping out.”.
On healthcare, Obaseki, who noted that the Edo Health Insurance Scheme had been devoted to making health care more accessible, said, “the biggest issue about healthcare today in Nigeria is cost.”
“Today we have one of the largest state insurance schemes in the country. We have almost 350,000 enrollees,” he said.
According to him, his administration has also demonstrated commitment to training and building the capacity of healthcare givers.
He said that the state had the Primary Health Care Development Agency, which is no longer within the total control of the local government.
“It is autonomous, we train them. The local government pays 60 per cent, the state pays 40 per cent to maintain that agency”,he said .
On agricultural development, Obaseki who described agriculture as a very risky business, said that government should try and help farmers reduce their risks.
Speaking on Edo Palm Programme, the governor described the initiative as an ambitious agriculture programme in Africa.
He added that the programme positioned the state as a leader in agriculture
Obaseki attributed the state’s strides in agriculture to provision of enabling environment for farming to boost food production and local economy.
He urged government at all levels to support farming instead of going into it.
“Government’s role should just be to support farming. What are the challenges of people who want to do serious farming? These should be the priority of government” he said.
The News Agency of Nigeria NAN (NAN) reports that the second and last tenure of Obaseki will end on Nov. 11.
Obaseki will hand over to the governor .- elect, Sen. Monday Okpebholo of the All Progressives Congress (APC), following his victory in the Sept. 21 governorship election in the state. (NAN)
27th October, 2024.
C.E.
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