In a bid to further strengthen the ideas of improving the quality of basic education for Nigeria’s most under-served communities, Teach for Nigeria, a Non-profit organisation and the present administration in Ogun State are working out further partnership arrangement to boost education in the state.
In furtherance of this, Gbenga Oyebode, Board Chairman, Teach for Nigeria and his team visited the governor of Ogun State recently.
Speaking at the courtesy call in the Governor’s office, Oyebode said the visit was to reaffirm Teach for Nigeria’s commitment to deepen its partnership with Ogun State and to seek ways to deepen that relationship.
Oyebode observes that Teach for Nigeria would not have been able to effectively carry out the interventions it has done since 2017 without the support of the Ogun state government especially the Ministry of Education and State Universal Basic Education (SUBEB).
He also called on the governor to engage some of the Teach for Nigeria Fellows adding that one of the great things about the Teach for Nigeria Fellowship programme is that a significant number of these Fellows stay in the education space after their two years of Fellowship to continue to drive systemic changes through policy and advocacy, while others remain in the classroom as teachers.
“The very fact that they participated in the programme here puts them in a better position to assist the state government around the education projects and so we would like an opportunity for them to engage with the state” Oyebode said.
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Dapo Abiodun, Ogun State governor while welcoming the Teach for Nigeria delegation reinstated the commitment of his administration to this project of teaching for Nigeria stressing that the government is keen to restore education to its pride of place.
Abiodun observes that Ogun State has the highest number of tertiary institutions in Nigeria, the highest number of secondary schools and probably the highest enrollment of students in basic education as well.
“We are the education capital of Nigeria and we want to ensure that those numbers match performance”, he said.
According to the governor, “On Assumption of office, I promoted 10,000 teaching and non-teaching staff that were due for promotion since 2016 because you have to have a motivated workforce and we are doing that across board in the civil service”.
“We have also looked at how to make the learning condition better and we also looked at the getting a uniform curriculum and also ensure we use technology to ensure teachers stay in class.
“We are also recruiting teachers. We want to make sure that we don’t just recruit teachers, but to recruit the right quality. The fellow of teach for Nigeria have demonstrated that they have a different kind of orientation”.
Abiodun further urged the Teach for Nigeria delegation to map out partnership plans on how to assist the State in the retraining of teachers adding that it is not enough to have new infrastructure in place, teachers must be trained to drive the process of transforming education in the state.
“I want to assure you that we are committed to the collaboration adding that education remains a front burner issue for the state because we see direct relationship between education and unemployment, criminality. This administration will give Teach for Nigeria all the support required and even more” the governor said.
