Edo Best Initiative: Revolutionising learning process

The ongoing transformation in Edo state education sector through EdoBest Initiative, introduced by the state governor, Mr Godwin Obaseki, is now making teaching-learning experience in public schools exciting .

Information gathered by Blueprint revealed  that the initiative has revolutionised the education sector as nothing less than 230 public schools across the state are benefiting from the programme.

Pupils now see learning as fun and enrollment is projected to increase as a result of the initiative now making learning environment conducive.

More information gathered was that renovation work in public schools has reached an advanced stage, with the addition of fully painted classrooms and complemented by digital teaching methods used in the schools.

EdoBest Initiative, a flagship education programme in Edo state under the vision and leadership of Governor Obaseki, is aimed at improving the learning outcome for generations of Edo children.

All over the world, education is the key that drives development and prosperity.  Thus through the programme the governor will improve teachers’ performance and quality of education..

The executive chairman, Edo State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB), Dr Joan Osa Oviawe, said the renovation of schools across the state was part of the Obaseki’s EdoBest Initiative agenda.

In a chat with the journalists recently in Abuja, Oviawe said the renovation work was being carried out to improve the learning environment in the schools to complement the training of teachers on modern teaching methods, which had now equipped teachers with the deployment of digital devices in improving learning outcomes.

Edo state, like many states of Nigeria, is facing some  challenges in its education sector. About a million school-aged children in Edo and 60 per cent of the population lives below the poverty line.

As part of the initiative, she said, they generated the data through text messages sent to the parents of school children.

She said they have also started teacher-parent interactive session in July, where parents come and meet one on one with the teachers to discuss the academic progress of their children, saying it was first in the history of public schools.

She stressed that across Edo state, particularly in the rural areas, the reports coming in was heart-warming as “some of the parents wear attires to school for the ‘open day’.

“We have some of our teachers wearing suits on that day. Some teachers even brought table cloths. There is a general sense of awakening and so the ‘open day’ has become part of our school calendar.

“We do open day in the beginning of the school year and after mid-term and we do academic display of what they have done over the term,” she said.

On the Pillar 4 of the EdoBest Initiative, Oviawe explained that the pillar is centred on community engagement and private partnership, adding that they realised that in order to achieve community ownership key, they engaged teachers who underwent EdoBest training to become social mobilisation officers by signifying interest.

She further said that a few were selected as the Global Mobilisation Officers who also serve as field workers. They visit the community doing sensitisation through the school boarding management committee.

“They are more or less like an expanded Parents/Teachers Association (PTA)

which consists of about 19 members, some of them are parents of the children, some are old and new pupils of the school. Others are community leaders, traditional rulers, and the rest.

“They serve as the SBCM to support the government in the running and

management of the school.

“We trained 11,689 SBMC members last year.”

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