Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo on Wednesday said that his administration would bequeath to the State quality education and better workforce as legacies to signpost his two terms in office as governor.
This was as he assured that by the time he would be leaving in November 2024, the people of the state would remember him for transforming public education and preparing the young ones for a knowledge-based economy that is required to survive the fourth industrial revolution.
The governor explained that the vision to build education at the foundational level and scale up intervention through the various levels of education up to tertiary level was critical so as to build a workforce that would usher in a prosperous society.
Governor Obaseki, who spoke at the Edo State Education Week 2023 with the theme, “Education for Alaghodaro: Investing in Quality Education and Access for our Children and Youth,” in Benin City, said his hope for the next decade was to see that the state did not rely on oil resources alone from the Federal Government to run the economy.
“The future we seek is one in which millions of well-educated citizens can participate in our economy by undertaking various economic activities with the advantage of the knowledge and education which they have acquired.
“Our grand plan is to make Edo State the best place to live and work by the year 2050, and we have realized that there is no better way to achieve this dream than training the workforce for the future from the primary school level so that these children will be the guardians of the vision and see to its fulfillment in future,” Obaseki said.
The education week, Obaseki hinted governor would feature spoken word poetry, debate, governor’s cup among other events, adding that all were aimed at underscoring his administration’s focus on transforming public education and portraying the successes of education reforms in Edo.
“It is expedient to reiterate that the most cherished legacy I want to be remembered for as the governor of Edo State is a legacy that we were able to transform public education and create opportunities for hundreds of thousands of children from across the various strata of our society so that they can get a decent world-class education just like we did growing up here.
“The education week, this year, has been rightly themed Education for Alaghodaro which means progress. The theme is education for progress and it ties to our vision to drive and develop plans with conscious and educated citizens,” the governor said.
Going the memory lane, Obaseki reminded the people how the journey started, saying, “As many of you know, we started these reforms in 2018, when we launched the Edo State Basic Education Transformation (EdoBEST) program. When we started, we used a pilot scheme before we did a full-scale rollout in all the schools across the basic school system in the three senatorial districts in the State.
“The program sets a structure, system and support mechanism to address fundamental challenges such as teacher quality, infrastructure of our schools, teaching and learning materials,” he said.
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