When you meet 9-year-old Chioma Okoh for the first time, you will assume she is of few words, soft-spoken and shy. But as you speak with her, your perception will change.
You will notice that her spoken English is excellent for her age and that she reads fluently. Your face may even crack into a smile when she begins to joyously sing those songs introduced into the Edo State school system through EdoBEST.
But Chioma was not always this way. Her transition from a child who could barely read, to one who can read and interact properly, is an interesting story which began in Delta State.
Unexpected change
In 2020, Chioma’s father, Benjamin Okoh passed away. It was a sad experience for the little girl and to continue her education, she moved in with her aunty, Betty Ngozi in Edo State.
“My brother’s daughter is my daughter,” Ms. Ngozi says. “I therefore had to take her in and give her the best education I could afford when my brother passed away.”
When Chioma arrived Benin City, she was placed in a private school close to Ms. Ngozi’s home in the hope that proximity to the school would afford her more study time and good grades.
After several months at the private school, “it was clear that there was a problem. Chioma could neither read, nor write properly,” Ms. Ngozi says.
“Though I was paying heavily, there was no correlation between how well she was performing academically and how much I was paying. To make it worse, her school report card showed that she was performing above average,” says Ms. Ngozi who is in her late 40s and has seen two of her own children through university.
Sparking change
This period coincided with the then, ‘Teaching at the Right Level’ (TARL), an initiative implemented across Edo State public primary schools under the EdoBEST programme.
Under the initiative, schoolchildren across Edo State were tested to better understand their competence in English and Mathematics. They were then placed in classes that reflect their capability for intensive teaching to get them up to speed.
Chioma was enrolled at Ivbiyeneva Primary School, an EdoBEST primary school in Benin City then.
“It was an intense period for all of us,” said Mrs. Eunice Ajayi, the headteacher. The thinking was that if we were able to get the children to read and write properly and perform basic arithmetic, then they will do well in other subjects.”
Pupils in primary 6 who were performing at the level of pupils in primary 4 were brought into primary 4. “The whole process put some pressure on the pupils also, some of those in higher classes were ashamed of receiving classes with their juniors. But in the end, after a term we saw marked improvement in grades and reading abilities,” she said.
“The first thing I noticed about Chioma was that on her own she would pick up the EdoBEST books and start reading aloud without much supervision,” says Ngozi.
“Another thing I noticed was that the house was full of singing, the child had become a happier child. After those intensive months in the public primary school, she was able to read like never before, her numeracy skills also improved tremendously. I said to myself, this thing we are doing is working,” she added.
Across Edo State, tales of marked improvement in learning outcomes of pupils in the public-school system were rife and a preliminary evaluation of the outcome of the programme showed that it is working.
In February 2019, the Edo State government commissioned a report called ‘The EdoBEST Effect’ which was designed to look at learning gains in the first term of the EdoBEST programme. The study looked at 30 control schools, 30 intervention schools and considered primary 3 and Primary 4 students.
It was discovered that pupils learnt in one term what they would normally learn in one year. An EdoBEST school equates to nearly three-quarters of a year more mathematics instruction and nearly two-thirds of a year more literacy instruction compared to a traditional Edo State primary school.
Primary 3 EdoBEST pupils scored six percentage points higher in mathematics and seven percentage points higher in English Literacy. More broadly, EdoBEST students scored higher on every examination. In Mathematics, they scored two percentage points higher than ‘status quo’ students.
For English Literacy, they were five percentage points higher than ‘status quo’ students.
Interestingly, increase in results were driven almost entirely by girls who outperformed boys but both boys and girls in outperformed pupils in ‘Status Quo’ schools.
Research also showed that EdoBEST teachers were 54% more likely to praise their pupils, thereby encouraging them to deliver better results.
Change across generations
The impact of EdoBEST transcends learning outcomes among pupils. It has affected teachers, young and old, in the primary school system.
Teachers who were hitherto averse to technology and anything gadgets began to appreciate how easy teaching and learning became after Governor Godwin Obaseki introduced the EdoBEST programme into schools, with its attendant proprietary techniques and technology.
“With the advent of EdoBEST, I was handed a teacher-computer by the state government. I was taught how to mark attendance, score kids in their tests, mark my arrival and departure in school and also receive and review lesson guides,” a primary school teacher outside Benin City said.
“I had to learn how to use the technology. Today I have moved further. Now, I have a smartphone with which I can do so many things, the technology no longer scares me because it’s part of my work tools, I use computers everyday like any other professional,” he said
Many primary school teachers in Edo State who were not technologically savvy have been trained to use technology as a work tool. Some have even gone the extra mile to research on ways to do their jobs better, using the internet.
“It opened our eyes to a whole new set of possibilities, said Ajayi. “For the older teachers and head teachers, it was also a slow but steady process. One thing is sure, we have made more progress than we ever anticipated after four years of implementing the EdoBEST programme.”
Expanding the frontier of reform
In 2022, the Edo State government continues to expand the EdoBEST programme across hard-to-reach primary schools and junior secondary schools in Edo State.
In the closing days of February 2022, a total of 379 schools cutting across primary and secondary schools had been added to the programme.
Over 600 primary school teachers undertook the EdoBEST induction training in January, while over 1,800 secondary school teachers were trained in February. All these personnel were equipped with teacher tablets or smartphone.
Upon return to their schools, these gadgets will be used for better school management, teacher and overall implementation of the EdoBEST pedagogy. The gadgets will also be used as tools for information dissemination from the Edo State Universal Basic Education Board to teachers and principals in the schools.
“His Excellency Governor Godwin Obaseki is committed to spreading the gains of EdoBEST to every corner of our state. This is the motivation behind this training. We are doing this to ensure that all our schools have adequate number of upskilled teachers and every child is learning,” Mrs. Ozavize Salami, Executive Chairman of EdoSUBEB said.
In 2018, Obaseki launched EdoBEST, a holistic basic education reform programme to address learning gaps and deficiencies identified in the school system. Since inception, the programme has been hailed as a workable, effective and sustainable template for basic education service delivery reform.
Other states in Nigeria, including Lagos, have launched similar reform programmes mirroring EdoBEST.
The overall objective is to see more pupils like Chioma benefit from the programme which has not only enhanced her learning outcomes but also helped her become more socially adaptable.
