Education Reform: Obaseki okays training on community engagement for Edo Social Mobilisation Officers

As part of efforts to integrate communities hosting Edo public schools in the ongoing reforms in the education sector, Governor Godwin Obaseki has ratified the training of Social Mobilisation Officers on community engagement and participation.

Acting Chairman of the Edo State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) and Special Adviser to the governor on Basic Education, Dr. Joan Osa Oviawe, disclosed this to journalists in Benin City, the state capital.

According to Dr. Osa Oviawe, the training programme would last ten days and is designed for social mobilisation officers and Head of Sections.

“The capacity development training on Community Engagement and Participation in Education, will prepare officers for the tasks ahead as they would bridge the gap between communities hosting schools across the state and management of the schools,” she said.

Dr. Osa Oviawe maintained “these officers would bring communities to be actively involved in the affairs of schools in their terrain by protecting school facilities and making sure every child in the community is properly educated.”

The role of communities hosting public schools came to the fore recently, when an inspection of reconstructed and remodelled schools revealed large scale vandalism of facilities in some schools in the state.

Reacting to the ugly development, Governor Obaseki assured that host communities would be assigned roles in the robust education reform, to protect school facilities from vandals, amongst other tasks.

The training of Social Mobilisation Officers is coming on the heels of an ongoing training of 5, 000 teachers, a major component of the Edo Basic Education Sector Transformation (Edo-BEST) initiative.

Edo-BEST is the brainchild of the governor Godwin Obaseki-led administration and is aimed at improving quality at the basic education sub-sector and will see public school teachers using digital devices and aids in teaching.

With the training, not less than 190,000 pupils in public schools in Edo State are billed to be schooled using technology-based teaching aids and methods.