*Obaseki Education reform: Edo children’s literacy, numeracy rates now at 70 percent, at par with counterparts in Europe, Asia*

The Edo State Governor, Mr. Godwin Obaseki, has said children’s literacy and numeracy rates in the State are now at 70 per cent, and at par with their peers in Europe and Asia.

Obaseki, who spoke in a chat with journalists, noted that the 70 percent is far more than the national percentage which is 30 percent.

The governor said this was achieved by building a resilient education system over the past seven and half years through the Edo State Basic Education Sector Transformation (EdoBEST) programme.

He explained that when his administration came on board, the State’s educational system had collapsed, which necessitated the urgent need for a holistic reform in the education sector to tackle learning poverty by leveraging technology to improve learning outcomes.

According to him, these reforms have led to the training of over 11,000 teachers and impacted over 400,000 children across various schools in the State.

He noted, “We had a unique experience when we came on board. We had a huge challenge in terms of education. Edo State at the time was a prime source for human trafficking and illegal migration. Between 2016 and 2017, we had more than 30,000 young Edo boys and girls who had got themselves to Libya to cross over to Europe.

"A lot of our young people could not find jobs because they were not employable and the reason was the educational system had collapsed. As a government, it was a wake-up call that we needed to do something drastic and more fundamental.

“We needed to look at the foundation of our educational system to understand why our children were not learning so as to take necessary and urgent steps to fix it. This led to the launch of the Edo State Basic Education Sector Transformation (EdoBEST) Programme, which today has continued to gain global acclaim.

The governor further stated, “Today, children’s literacy and numeracy rates in Edo are now 70% at par with their peers in Europe, more than the national percentage which is 30%. The reform has trained more than 11,000 teachers and impacted 400,000 children.

“In these past few years, as a government, we are confident that we have built a resilient education system with the EdoBEST programme and tackled learning poverty by leveraging technology to improve learning outcomes.”