By Precious Igbonwelundu
WHEN 14-year-old Memunatu Musa, a pupil of Enikaro Primary School in Benin City, Edo State, was forced into marriage to a 50-year-old man in Katsina State, her dreams of going to school and becoming a career woman suffered setback.
Like many young girls her age forced into early marriages in different parts of the country, Musa could have become a child producing machine and put at risk of Vesicovaginal Fistula (VVF), but for last year’s intervention of the Edo State Government which rescued her from Katsina and reintegrated her into the school system through Edo Basic Education Sector Transformation (EdoBEST) programme.
Musa is one of 33 percent of young girls married off before they turn 18 years in Benin. This statistics, according to social advocacy group, #GirlsNotBrides, comprised 26 percent married off before their 18th birthday and seven per cent forced into marriage before they turn 15.
These children who are made to abandon school, contribute to the over 13 million estimated out of school boys and girls across the country.
Faced with this challenge, the administration of Governor Godwin Obaseki embarked on a mission to change the narrative with training and equipping teachers for improved learning outcomes, as well as the reconstruction of schools. This move has seen well over 8,700 teachers trained and 7,094 equipped with computer tablets which have positively impacted more than 150,000 school children in the state, while no fewer than 234 schools have received facelift and 11,688 School-Based Management Committee (SBMC) members trained to help in administering and maintaining public education facilities all geared towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goal 4 (ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all).
Commending the EdoBest initiative, the World Economic Forum (WEF) in a recent publication on its official website noted it has improved learning outcomes among pupils in primary schools across the state.
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It said: “Education experts around the world and across Africa, in particular, are paying close attention to EdoBEST, which has become a beacon of light to other education ministries because it is improving learning for marginalised children and up-skilling both novice and experienced teachers at scale, within existing state budgets and without western aid.”
Similarly, the World Bank, and the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) also highlighted EdoBEST as a crucial programme that can be a template for transforming education in educationally disadvantaged societies. Hence, it did not come as a surprise when the World Bank recently approved a $75million facility to Edo State to help address issues of education development.
Speaking during a rally, Obaseki assured the people that would be utilised to change the face of education in Edo and Nigeria for the next three years.
He said the intervention fund would help to expand the existing EdoBEST programme from basic education to secondary level as well as reset the state’s tertiary education system on the path of progress.
“What this means is that over the next three years, we will have about N40 billion to utilise in changing the face of education in Edo and Nigeria. This is because of the fantastic work which members of our team have undertaken in the past few years to show the world what we can do with our educational system.
“It will interest you to know that this facility will help us at the secondary school level to do what we have started doing at the basic education level so that by the time a child has gone through five years of learning, that child will be exposed not only to learning and literacy but also to a vocation. This is the last time in our history that our education system will produce Agberos,” said Obaseki.
According to the Special Adviser to the Governor on Media, Crusoe Osagie, many states within Nigeria and some African countries have sent delegations to Edo to understudy the EdoBEST programme.
