This year’s edition of EWF themed: “Education: building forward together; stronger, bolder, better,” featuring heads of state, education, and skills ministers is holding two years after the last in-person edition in 2020.
Education ministers from over 100 countries, as well as international organizations and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), are gathered to discuss how technology, artificial intelligence and experience can be leveraged to strengthen education systems and economies worldwide.
It was gathered that discussions will also include how countries can develop their education systems with limited resources.
The Executive Chairman, Lagos State Universal Basic Education (LASUBEB) Board, Hon. Wahab Alawiye-King and the Board’s Director of Administration and Human Resources, Mrs Taiye Oguntona, are representing EKOEXCEL at the forum.
EKOEXCEL’s counterpart programme in Edo State, EdoBEST, was represented by the State Commissioner for Education, Dr Joan Osa Oviawe and the Chair, Edo State Universal Basic Education Board, Mrs Ozavize Salami.
EKOEXCEL said participation in the.2022 Education World Forum (EWF) was significant because governments in Nigeria were looking for new solutions to rebuild the education system against the backdrop of the recent disclosure by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) about the poor learning outcomes in Nigeria’s primary education.
According to a statement made available to newsmen, this is also coming against a series of complaints by “education activists about the poor budgetary allocation to education in Federal and state budgets as well as inadequate teacher training and outdated teaching methods, some of which the international UNICEF touched upon in assessments of the poor education prospects in Nigeria.”
“One in every five of the world’s out-of-school children is in Nigeria, with an estimate of over 10 million such children in Nigeria.
“There seems to be light at the end of this never-ending dark tunnel with Governor Sanwo-Olu’s determination to change the narrative with the introduction of Project Zero, a public-private partnership initiative to fund education for out-of-school children and the EKOEXCEL programme. Launched in 2019, EKOEXCEL has made laudable/noteworthy achievements since then.
“Over 18,000 headteachers and teachers have been moved from analogue to digital teaching, using tablets and updated curricula. Over 14,000 primary school teachers from 1,011 public primary schools have been captured under the scheme. The education reform programme has also recorded remarkable gains in enhancing the teacher-pupil interaction experience through technology (eLearning) in Lagos State primary schools,” the statement said.
“The transformational intervention has also aided uniformity and strict adherence to the curriculum. Teachers’ tablets are preloaded with lessons and content that can be effectively monitored for standardisation across Lagos’ 1,011 public primary schools.
“Commendably, all the achievements are not just based on conjectures. They are factual, as the EKOEXCEL 2020-2021 Endline Fluency and Numeracy Evaluation showed. EKOEXCEL pupils are making remarkable progress in oral reading fluency and foundational numeracy compared to their last performance before the initiative’s commencement,” it added.
