Over 600,000 pupils benefit from EdoBEST initiative since 2018 – Salami

Edo State Government has said that over 600,000 pupils have so far benefited from its Edo Basic Education Transformation System (EdoBEST) since its inception in 2018.

Ozavize Salami, chairman, Edo State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) made this known while reeling out the achievements of the board at a media event in Benin City.

Ozavize said that Governor Godwin Obaseki’s investment in education has continued to positively impact learning outcomes and the school environment.

She added that over 380,000 children are receiving relevant and next-generation aligned learnings which are made available to 1,289 basic education schools (primary and junior secondary schools) across 18 local government areas in the state.

The SUBEB boss said 181 projects have been embarke in primary and secondary schools in the state to improve on their infrastructure.

While stating that the state government provides free education for pupils up to JSS 3, he added that the school curriculum is enriched with life skills that makes the pupils competitive should they decide to discontinue their education.

She further disclosed that between October 2021 and July 2023, under EdoBEST2.0, the administration distributed over 11,635 digital work tools comprising smartphones, teacher tablets, Samsung tablets and power banks to various stakeholders in the basic education ecosystem.

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She gave the breakdown of the digital tools distributed to include 249 Samsung tablets, 8,841 teacher tablets, 1,154 Smartphones and 1,391 power banks.

“228 schools under the Edo Basic Education Transformation System (EdoBEST), have 346,757 pupils, with 15,125 digitally trained teachers, adding that governance across SUBEB and the schools has drastically improved.

“More than 1.5million textbooks, homework books, over 7.5 million exam materials and not less than 1.6 million result sheets were distributed to facilitate teaching, learning and assessment.

“Additionally, over 1,100 toilets have been constructed or renovated with 174 toilets rooms nearing completion. 41 Water projects are also currently ongoing”, she added.

She posited that while 7,511 classrooms have been renovated, and 321 new classrooms constructed since the start of the administration, an additional 400 classrooms are being constructed and renovated.

The SUBEB boss, who also spoke on efforts geared towards improving school infrastructure noted that at least 48,950 metres of school fence have been constructed, another batch of fence construction measuring 14,850 metres will be completed before September 2023.

She said that about 38,000 furniture sets have been supplied to schools while another of 10,000 furniture sets are in finishing stages soon to be delivered to schools ahead of the new academic session.