Victor Ogunje in Ado Ekiti
The Ekiti State Governor, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, has disclosed that his administration had spent N16 billion to develop basic education in the state by building new schools, renovating older ones and building capacity of teachers.
Fayemi stated this in Ado-Ekiti yesterday while receiving a delegation from the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) led by its Executive Secretary, Dr. Hamid Bobboyi.
He also affirmed that the state increased in primary and secondary schools enrolment by 40,000 and 25,000 respectively within the first two and a half years of his administration.
The governor, who commended the executive secretary of the UBEC for the great job the commission was doing, described Bobboyi as an exemplary administrator who has used critical initiatives to deliver on the assignment given to him.
Fayemi also said that his administration had to pay N8billion in order to access N16 billion, and stressed that the intervention has been very helpful to the state in the giant strides it has recorded in the area of basic education development.
He noted that the state dropped from the first position it occupied in 2014 to the last position in 2018 because the immediate past administration in the state neglected the development of basic education.
The governor, however, said that he is happy that the state has bounced back to its enviable position in the South-west and the entire country within a period of two and a half years that he returned to office.
He said that his administration would continue to make schools easily accessible to all Ekiti children no matter without walking a long distance as provided by UNESCO.
Fayemi further reiterated the commitment of his administration to the development of e-learning at every level of education in the state, adding that he had a shot at it during his first term in office where he had an agreement with Samsung for the provision of solar laptop per child in the junior secondary schools.
“I remember visiting the executive secretary in my first month in office, when I returned in 2018, and UBEC had just completed a study at the time on enrolment and performance, and Ekiti that was the first when I left in 2014 was the last in the entire Southwest. And I think in two and a half years, we have had a 40,000 increase in our primary school enrolment and 25,000 in secondary school enrolment.
“I know that e-learning is a major interest and we are one of the beneficiaries of those schools. I think it’s almost completed now. We’ve always been passionate about e-learning, during my first term, I know that one of the projects that we focused on, was to make available solar laptop per child in our Junior Secondary Schools, which of course had programme, curriculum loaded into them and Samsung also then donated a Samsung Engineering Centre for the repair of gadgets in our Technical College here in Ado-Ekiti.
“Once you can tackle literacy and numeracy, that is the core of education, it’s not tertiary education. For someone to be able to live a life of worth, you don’t have to have a university degree. If you are properly trained in basic education level, and that is an area that we have concentrated,” he stated.
The executive secretary of the UBEC Executive Secretary used the visit to commend Fayemi’s administration for the huge investment in education, saying the state never lagged behind in payment of counterpart funding during his administration.
The UBEC boss urged other state governments to embrace e-learning in order to ensure that everyone leverages on information and communication technology, adding that the UBEC would continue to assist states to reposition their basic education development.
