Gov. Godwin Obaseki of Edo on Tuesday in Abudu, Orhionmwon Local Government Area of the state, assured that the state would regain its position as the education hub in Nigeria.
Obaseki gave the assurance shortly after inspecting the current construction work of the College of Education in Abudu, which he said would focus on the training of teachers for pre-primary and primary schools.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that there are three Colleges of Education in Edo — Igueben College of Education, the one in Abudu and that located at Afuze.
According to the governor, Igueben will focus on training teachers who will teach technical subjects and the one in Afuze will focus on special education.
“We are expecting that Abudu will be open to students before July this year. It’s almost ready for occupation, we are just finalizing the faculty, the accreditation team has been here and am quite impressed with the quality and pace of work.
“It has been an unusual year. In the last one year, not much has happened. The contractors have to leave site to protect their workers; the supply chain has been disrupted, but in spite of the delay, you will agree with me that a lot has been achieved.
“That work has progressed at a pace slightly ahead of what we expected because of coronavirus. Some of the other campuses have students, Igueben has students, we are scaling up the number of students by expanding the number of facilities,” he said.
He further assured that the state is in collaboration with the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) and the government of Korea.
“The right facilities will be put in this place so that we can train teachers practically in the use of technology, using technology to train these students and imbibing in them the culture of technology from tender age,” he said.
Also speaking, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) Chairman in Edo, Mr Tony Aziegbemi, commended the quality and size of the College of education in Abudu.
“One would have thought that with the effect of Covid-19, there won’t be funds to execute this project. We are pleased and very happy that our governor is executing projects of this magnitude even with the tight economy.
“This is the basis of making Edo great again. We need teachers to train our students to be good citizens of our state and our country. We are very excited and happy about this,” he said.
In his response, the PDP national vice Chairman, Mr Dan Orbir, said “With what you have seen here, if the government continues to deliver on its promises, there will be no criticism anywhere in the state.
“It has shown that this government is serious about what it’s doing and I can say that the South-South is setting the pace in terms of development. What you are seeing here in Edo is being replicated in all of the PDP states in the South South,” Orbir added. (NAN)
