The Edo State Universal Basic Education Board, says it is taking advantage of digital learning initiative and robust collaboration with United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to ensure quality education in the state.
Ozavize Salami, Chairman of the board, said this while addressing journalists during a tour of the Samuel Ogbemudia Girls College, Benin.
The tour was part of a two-day media workshop organised by UNICEF in collaboration with the Edo State SUBEB, Edo Ministry of Education and the National Orientation Agency (NOA) Lagos
Salami said that the deployment of digital learning initiative since the inception of “EdoBEST” program had been in line with intelligence gathered through digital platform.
“We must bring a certain level of intelligence into how we deploy the resources assigned to us.
“Prior to now, when we do not have accurate data, we have schools with more buildings than what they actually needed and some with insufficient structures.
“So with current digital education system in the state, our data is guiding us to know the number of Community schools in need and how many neighboring schools are available.
“Our mandate is to ensure that the school enrollment is always on the increase and it will always be a priority to us,” she said.
Salami disclosed that the School O’Clock Campaign of the government to ensure that the students stay in school during the school hours was not to incarcerate students.
She explained that the initiative seeks to assess the students’ wellbeing to determine factors responsible for them being out of school.
“On many occasions, we locate their parents to address their issues, which has been the reason behind the success recorded so far,” she said.
Mrs Josephine Igbinidu, the Principal of Samuel Ogbemudia Girls College, said that the EdoBEST digital learning initiative had led to increase in students enrollment across public schools in the state.
Igbinidu noted that the digital platform offers the parents the privilege of assessing and monitoring academic performance and progress of their children seamlessly.
She noted that digital learning device helps to deliver accurate content to the students within the reasonable timeframe allotted for each class.
Igbinidu said that the School Base Management Committee (SBMC) and Parents Teachers Conference initiatives in the EdoBEST program also gave parents, teachers and other stakeholders an opportunity to meet regularly to address issues concerning the students and the school.
She urged government to recruit more teachers into the scheme so as to balance students to teachers ratio.
Also, a teacher in the school, Mrs Akintunde Osahi, said that the platform had increased teachers commitment because of its tracking feature.
Oshai urged government to convert teachers on casual appointments to permanent job.
Freda Ogierhiakhi, a student, said that the EdoBEST digital learning platform offers leaning simplicity and improves students’ performance.
