Schools may not yet be wearing a new look in Edo State. However, Governor Godwin Obaseki has introduced a template – Edo BEST – that is gradually transforming the basic education sector. OSAGIE OTABOR (Benin) reports.
Since November 2016, when Edo State Governor Godwin Obaseki mounted the saddle, no public primary or secondary school has been reconstructed, neither have new ones been built. The people’s expectation was that Obaseki would follow the footsteps of his predecessor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, in the red roof revolution in public schools but he has other ideas.
Oshiomhole spent a fortune to build several primary and secondary schools across the state. The schools were fitted with aluminum windows, polyvinyl chloride (PVC) ceilings, tiles, fans and desks and chairs. Unfortunately, over 50 percent of the schools have been vandalised.
In many of the schools, pupils now sit on the floor to learn as it was before Oshiomhole because the furniture have been stolen. The doors, windows and white boards too are gone. Apart from the red roofs, some of the schools have not been renovated.
Obaseki has chosen to do things differently. He introduced the Edo Basic Education Sector Transformation – Edo BEST – to revamp basic education in the state.
Edo BEST has five pillars — restructuring of State Universal Basic Education Board and the Local Government Education Authority, teachers’ development and quality assurance, providing pupils with the right curriculum and learning tools, community engagement through Social Mobilisation Officers and provision of infrastructure.
In restructuring SUBEB, Obaseki sacked its chairman, Prince Steve Alao, and redeployed almost all the staff working there.
A similar fate befell the LGEA where Obaseki overhauled the entrenched system of bribe for promotion. Sources at the LGEA said some teachers got promoted yearly – with juicy posting, while others who could not afford to pay huge bribes remained stagnant.
On teachers’ development, the first set of 1,500 teachers completed training on the use of Information and Communication Technology(ICT)-based teaching method in April. The teachers were given tablets while the head teachers got smart phones to transmit daily attendance. The tablets are loaded with digital lesson plans for every lesson needed for each day. Head teachers are provided with monthly data to enable them use the software in the smart phone to register all children and take attendance and manage teacher performance in each classroom every day.
The teachers were deployed to primary one to three classes across the state.
A second set of 7,000 teachers are undergoing training on pedagogy to extend the programme to pupils in primary three to five.
Another 150 persons were also trained as Social Mobilisation Officers to engage communities on why they should protect facilities in public schools in their domains.
Acting Secretary of the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) Edo State wing Comrade Moni Mike Modesty-Itua described the Edo BEST training programme as one they had been clamouring for.
“The training is necessary for the teachers. From the reports from the first set they trained, we can say it is working.They are doing massive training for teachers. We are optimistic that it will work’’ he said.
However, he said the training had shortcomings which he did not disclose.
“The NUT has observed some shortcomings which we will talk on later,” he said.
However, the new SUBEB Chairman, Dr Joan Osa Oviawe, said Edo BEST would correct anomalies in public schools.
She defended Obaseki’s decision not to begin with infrastructural development. ‘’Obaseki has said he would not do any renovation or construction of schools unless their host communities sign undertakings to protect facilities in the school.)
She said putting a child in a five-star facility where no teaching or learning is taking place would achieve nothing, adding that children in some dilapidated buildings are learning something.
“Oshiomhole did a lot of work with the red roof revolution but if you go to a lot of the schools now, they have been vandalised. Obaseki said he would not do any renovation unless the communities around signed undertakings that they will protect the school. The least the community can do is to provide support. We are already seeing progress with the Social Mobilisation,” she said.
Oviawe said Edo BEST would be spread to 612 schools to benefit additional 150,000 pupils even as 718,500 text books have been procured for pupils.
Even without fantastic facilities, Oviawe said things were already changing.
She said: “We need to have sanity in the system. A situation where everything goes because some teachers can bribe some persons had to stop. We discovered people were promoted every year while others were not. Some have changed their date of birth 10 times. That kind of lack of sanity is what Mr. Governor is trying to correct.
“For the first time in Edo State public schools last year, we had Open Day. The Open Day is when parents can come to school to meet with their children’s teacher and get progress report. We did not think people will respond. The level of response across the state, especially in the rural areas, was phenomenal.
“We saw parents come to schools to see how their children were doing. Teachers spent money to beautify their schools. From Open Day, we discovered parents who pulled their children out of their private schools to public schools because of Edo BEST.”
With Edo Best also comes a new method of managing discipline of pupils in schools. Teachers are no longer alowed to beat pupils.
“As soon the teachers finished training, we told them we were abolishing corporal punishment. There was resistance from some teachers who claimed that not caning children will make them less disciplined. We told them there is difference between abuse and punishment. We gave them six strategies for disciplining pupils. We also introduced rewards. We have character board where names of best pupils are written down.
“Teachers reported back that pupils are struggling to do the right thing so that their names would be on the board. In some schools, pupils now arrive before the teachers,” she said.
Having trained 150 teachers in community engagement to help communities take ownership of the schools, Oviawe expects the final pillar of Edo BEST, infrastructural development, would be successfully implemented.
“By the time we start renovation and reconstruction, the community will be ready to protect it. The teachers are ready to teach; we have learning and development officers; we will set them out to be training teachers on the spot; we have digitised everything in our schools,” he said.
Some of the teachers who spoke to our reporter praised Edo BEST for making teaching uniform across the state.
Mr Omorede Felix said the pupils would be the greatest beneficiaries of the programme.
“We have seen these teachers’ guide and the old method we are used to. There are differences between them. With the knowledge we have got from the training, our teaching will be different. Everything we are teaching will now be uniform across the state. The children will be the greatest beneficiaries. We are very happy. We have been using the tablets,” he said.
Another teacher, Joan Obakpolor, said teachers have raised their game.
“It will make us to be up and doing and make the children to learn more by practising what they have been taught,” he said.
Another teacher, Moses Osakpolor, said the new method has made it difficult for teachers not to complete their curriculum as they digitally upload daily attendance and lessons taught to the authorities.
