The Edo State Governor, Mr. Godwin Obaseki, has charged students, parents and other stakeholders to protect infrastructures in state-owned schools in their communities.
The governor gave the charge during a meeting with traditional and religious leaders, teachers, parents, pupils and private school owners, as well as other stakeholders, tagged, “Together We Can Do More,” at the Government House, Benin City.
Obaseki reassured that the government will sustain investment in school infrastructure across the state, ensuring a conducive learning environment for students in the state.
Obaseki, who urged parents and other stakeholders to play more role in the maintenance of facilities in schools provided by the government in their various communities, added, “Parents should also do more for the children’s nutrition as children cannot concentrate on their studies if they are hungry. It is our collective responsibility to take care of children whose parents cannot provide for their daily feeding.”
He further called for an extension of school hours for children in primary schools across the state, noting that it will improve the gains recorded by the Edo Basic Education Section Transformation (EdoBEST) in the last three years.
Obaseki stated that extending the school closing time by one hour will increase the teacher-pupil contact, give the pupils more time to learn and cover the school curriculum, noting, “The extension of school closing time by one more hour will give the children more time for learning and to cover the school curriculum especially as the COVID-19 pandemic had made us lose so much time in the last one year.”
He said through the deployment of technology, the state government has been able to monitor progress made by over 270,000 children in public schools across the state, adding that his administration will leverage on the use of ICT to strengthen the Ministry of Education with the support of the State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) to track and monitor the development and learning process of children irrespective of the school they attend.
He said, “With the introduction of Edo BEST, we have changed the culture of our classroom by simplifying the curriculum to make learning fun and easy through the deployment of technology. The change was made possible through the support of Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT), teachers and parents.
“We have succeeded because we have decided to gather our limited resources to improve infrastructure in our schools. We have built more than 204 classrooms while renovating over 9,000 others, as it is now comfortable for our children. We have also distributed more than 370,600 pieces of furniture and provided over 8.5 million readiness materials in our primary school.”
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