Obaseki shares Edo’s education reforms’ success story at Africa Heads of State Summit

…thrills African leaders, policymakers with policies to improve learning outcomes, others

Reforms to transform Edo’s education sector and tackle learning poverty in the state took centre stage at the Africa Heads of State Human Capital Summit (HCS) in Tanzania’s port city of Dar es Salaam on Tuesday.

African leaders and policymakers at the confab were impressed as Edo State Governor, Mr. Godwin Obaseki, shared his government’s achievements in the state’s basic education system as well as the entire education ecosystem over the past six years.

Edo is the only sub-national invited as a state to the Africa Heads of State Summit and continues to stand out as a sub-national that is demonstrating strong political will and action to accelerate investments in learning and human capacity development.

The Summit, which is taking July 25-26, has in attendance over 1,200 delegates, including African leaders, policymakers, and other development stakeholders from over 30 African countries.

Speaking in a panel session at the Summit on the theme “From Strategy to Implementation in Education”, Obaseki, shared insights on how his government’s bold and strong institutional reforms in Edo State have translated to improved learning outcomes. He also highlighted ongoing efforts to accelerate and sustain the gains recorded in the state’s education ecosystem.

The governor said Edo State “has become a reference on how a sub-national can undertake massive transformation and significantly improve learning outcomes in the public school system”.

“We have over the past six years deployed significant resources to improve teaching and learning outcomes, focusing on the basic education sector with over 380,000 students from various public schools across the State currently benefiting from the State’s Basic Education Sector Transformation (EdoBEST) Programme. With the success recorded in the basic sector, we are expanding the programme to capture secondary schools and tertiary institutions in the State,” Obaseki said.

“As a government, we understand the need for quality manpower in the overall development of our State and are investing aggressively in this regard, building the capacity of our people and ensuring a massive transformation throughout the entire educational system, from basic education to senior school, technical colleges and tertiary institutions, to guarantee highly-skilled graduates that can compete in the global workforce,” he said.