By Mercy Akuba
Rays of hope for affordable, efficient and accessible education is about to beam on parents who have their wards in Primary and Secondary Schools in Edo State as the newly inaugurated Hon. Commissioner for Education, Dr. Paddy Emmanuel Iyamu has revealed that unnecessary burden that orchestrate buying of books in private and public schools that can not be used again by pupils will soon come to an end.
Dr Iyamu who said that the Governor, Senator Monday Okpebholo has declared a state of emergency in Education in the State stressed that his office is in a hurry to bring about standard Educational system in both private and government schools across the state.
Dr. Iyamu stated this while responding to questions from Newsmen in his office on Monday assured Parents that is a new dawn prepared to overhaul the Educational system and bring on board innovative measures that will prepare every Edo Child to embrace the future that awaits them.
He said the State government through his office is ready to collaborate with FG to ensure all Edo Children benefits from the Educational packages FG has listed for schools across the country.
Lamenting how the previous administration of Godwin Obaseki prevented Edo pupils from benefitting from FG, said is a different ball game this time around as every single benefits will from FG would trickle down to all Edo Children in the state.
Speaking further, he assured that as his office carry out reviews on the program of Edo BEST and others initiated by the previous administration, he is prepared to advance good initiative, build on it, discard irrelevant ones and most importantly, ensure that no Edo Child is lagging behind.
Dr. Iyamu further added that Educational facilities in the state are in shambles, and they need urgent rescue which he is fully ready to revamp.
” I will focus on infrastructure because our schools are in a very bad shape, imagine this time and age when the World has advanced with Artificial intelligence, our children are still sitting on the floor. Is barbaric, is not acceptable, so, we are going to focus on bringing back the lost glory of our schools”.he said.
He added that vocational training will be part of curriculum to enable every child acquire basic skills that will help them to find their feet when certificate is not opening doors.
‘ Outside acquiring certificate, we are also going to lay emphasis on vocational training where Students will acquire the training along with their certification. We are going to ensure it is added to their syllabus, skills likes bricklaying, tailoring, hairdressing, as much as you have them to help our children so that when they graduate with their certificates , they have a skill they can comfortably use to provide services and they get paid,. even , become employers of labours”.