BENIN CITY – The Edo State Governor, Mr. Godwin Obaseki, has commended the former President, Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) International, Sir Egbert Imomoh and his wife, Lady Patricia, for their contribution to educational development in the state.
The governor gave the commendation as he commissioned a new block of classroom and offices donated by Sir Egbert and Lady Imomoh, to Sacred Heart College, Agenebode in Etsako East Local Government Area (LGA).
Obaseki said, “The Imomohs are not the wealthiest from the community. There are people who have more money but because of the Christian values they possess and the heart of kindness and generosity they have, they decided not to have a big party but rather used the money to build this edifice for the children.
“As a government, human capacity development and education is our number one priority. I want to be known as a governor who re-enacted education in Edo State.
“I can remember during our electioneering campaign, we promised we are going to create 200,000 jobs in our first term in office. We are on target; we would have been able to create over that number if we have the educational system that trains people. With the foundation we are laying through the Edo Basic Education Sector Transformation (Edo-BEST), we can meet our target sufficiently.”
Noting that there are plans to roll out the programme in private schools across the state, he said, “From my portal, I can tell which teacher is not in school and which teacher did not complete his or her lesson note in Edo State. We know that all the children in Edo State are not in Government schools, that is why by middle of April, we are going to bring all the schools together under one platform.
“We will go around and get the information on the location of the schools; the number of pupils or children in the schools, telephone numbers of their parents and other vital information because we found out that what is good for public schools, should also be good for private schools.”
He continued, “We have undertaken an experiment. The Edo-BEST programme would have run for two years on the 19th of April. Edo State is one of the states with the lowest number of out of school children. We have no issue; every parent knows that they must send their children to school but the question is, do they learn?
“In the last two years, we conducted an experiment and we are so glad with the success we have achieved. We are now focusing on the pupil. We have taken extra interest on the teachers; we emphasised on training the teachers and enriching the curriculum of the teachers. The world is celebrating Edo-BEST today.”
The governor added, “We built infrastructure because that is what people see and if the school is nicer than the home of the pupils, children will want to stay longer in school.
“Another area we are focusing on is the school’s administrative system. After two years, we have seen parents moving their children from private schools into public schools. The quality of learning has improved in public schools and the teachers are better motivated. We now have a School Based Management Committee (SBMC), who now take interest in what happens at the schools.”
