The Edo State Governor, Mr. Godwin Obaseki has said his administration has trained over 11,365 teachers in the state since the introduction of Edo Basic Education Sector Transformation (EDOBEST) in 2018, deploying digital teaching tools to provide functional basic education to Edo children.
Obaseki said this at the 29th annual International Conference of the Association of Vocational Education of Nigeria (AVTEN), held at the University of Benin (UNIBEN).
The governor noted that his administration’s sustained investment in basic education is hinged on its role at boosting technical and vocational training.
According to him, “the basis for a solid technical and vocational education is quality basic education because without ensuring that our children have the right foundational skills, both literacy and life skills, they cannot grow independently.
“Without that foundation, you cannot build a solid technical and vocational education. So, since 2018, we commenced the revamping of the state’s basic education through our EDOBEST programme. We are proud of our achievements in this regard.”
The governor noted: “We have renovated and constructed over 400 primary schools, improved teaching and learning in about 814 primary schools and trained 11,365 teachers, while over 246,731 children have benefited from our reforms in our basic education system.
“We realize that if children are going to get quality education at a foundational stage, then you must focus on the teachers. Under EDOBEST, we have built the capacity of our teachers and our head teachers through the use of technology.
“We made sure that learning materials were available to our children. Over the last three years, we have produced more than 8.5 millions textbooks and learning materials for these children. We have also built the capacity of our educational managers.”
He continued: “We have also launched EDOBEST 2.0 because we have seen that in three to four years, we have moved children from primary one to six.
“We have also realized that the junior school is where the child is defined. We want to make sure that they get vocational and technical skills. We have been able to train about 160,000 young men and women in various programmes through our skills development agency, EdoJobs.
“We have enjoyed a lot of local and international partners including the Bank of Industry. One of the most recent projects which we are very excited about is the Edo technology skills campus. Under this arrangement, our goal is to make sure that over the next three to five years, we train a minimum of 10,000 people in software engineering in Edo.”
“I want to use this opportunity to thank President Muhammadu Buhari for approving the establishment of a Federal Technical College of Education in South-South to train technical teachers, which is to be sited in Edo. By the grace of God, that school will take off by January next year,” Obaseki noted.
