Obaseki budgets N24bn for sustaining gains recorded in education sector

Obaseki, who spoke to journalists in Benin City, said the government is committed to deepening reforms in the education sector to ensure that every Edo child is empowered to be globally competitive.

He said the monies will be expended on sustaining the gains recorded in the sector through the Edo Basic Education Sector Transformation (EdoBEST) Programme, building and maintaining physical infrastructure across schools in the state, and upskilling teachers, among others.

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According to him, “For education, we plan to deepen EdoBEST 2.0, build the capacity of our teachers to domesticate the EdoBEST model, maintain physical infrastructure across schools in the state as well as intensify rebuilding structures, processes and equipment at our tertiary institutions, among others. This will take up N24.6bn in the budget.”

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Speaking on achievements by his administration in the outgoing year, Obaseki stated, “Children in primary schools in Edo State today now learn three times more than they used to learn with the old pedagogue. The World Bank has acknowledged this consequential progress we have made in addressing Foundational Literacy and Numeracy defects in our students.

“Edo today is ranked as one of the five nationals and sub-nationals in the world leading the charge in tackling learning poverty. We have the lowest number of out-of-school children in Nigeria on account of our reforms.”

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He added, “The EdoBEST 2.0 has been launched, through which not less than 300 junior secondary schools are being migrated to the EdoBEST platform, to sustain gains made in the past few years.

“At the tertiary education level, the Edo State College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Iguoriakhi and its sister campuses are being upgraded to a global standard.”