Obaseki, World Bank strengthen partnership to deepen reforms in education

The Edo State Governor, Mr. Godwin Obaseki, has said his government is strengthening collaboration with the World Bank to sustain ongoing reforms and improve on the successes recorded by his administration in the education sector over the past six years.

Obaseki said this when he received a delegation of the World Bank who were at the Government House in Benin City on a mid-term review of their ongoing projects in the State.

The governor noted, “We are happy to have you here and would like to go through the last review to see where we made less improvement or progress. We appreciate your team for the visit as we look forward to working with you as an accelerator State in helping lift the policy of education and access to education not only in Edo State but across the Country and the sub-region.

“The most important thing for us as a State is the proper utilization of the facilities we received from the World Bank. We are utilizing the facilities to cascade reforms and development across a wider spectrum of government. Our focus is on the sustainability of all our reforms in the last six years.”

“I welcome the World Bank team to the State for this midterm review mission as we are not new to this kind of exercise.”

Earlier, while commending the government’s commitment to improving the quality of education in the State, the Education Economist, Task Team Leader of the World Bank, Martin De Simone said the team is in the State to carry out a mid-term review of the EdoBEST programme.

He said, “The World Bank is proud of Edo State and happy with what is on ground in the State. We are looking forward to scaling this to other States and a larger population. This midterm report will focus on sustainability in terms of reforms in the State.”

On her part, the Edo SUBEB Chairman, Ozavize Salami, said “The World Bank is here to check out how well our disbursement and performance development objectives are carried out and the things set out to be achieved in our education and skills space. The report that will come out from this exercise will determine how the World Bank will proceed with this programme, and how much further they can help us.”

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L-R: Senior Education Specialist, World Bank, Olatunde Adekola; Senior Economist and Co-Task Team Leader, World Bank, Gloria Joseph-Raji, Education Specialist and Task Team Leader, World Bank, Martin De Simone; Edo State Governor, Mr. Godwin Obaseki; Executive Chairman, Edo State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB), Ozavize Salami, and Managing Director, EdoJobs, Mrs. Violet Obiokoro, during a courtesy visit at the Government House, in Benin City. the Government House in Benin City.