Ekiti State Governor, Mr Biodun Oyebanji has said that his administration would continue to collaborate with the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), Federal Ministry of Education and all other Education stakeholders through the State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) to improve the skills and capacity of teachers in the basic education sector in the State.
Speaking in Ado Ekiti during the official flag-off ceremony of a 5-day workshop on the Digitalization of Basic Education for Teachers, SUBEB and LGEA Officials, Governor Oyebanji stressed the importance of regular training of educators in the State on the BESDA Attendance Management Information System (BAMIS) mobile application, which is a digital attendance monitoring system for tracking learners’ attendance.
His Excellency, while flagging off the event, harped on the importance of professionalism and continuous skill acquisition in the teaching profession, stating that teachers needed to be trained and retrained on modern teaching and monitoring methods.
The Governor who was represented by the SUBEB Executive Chairman, Prof. Femi Akinwumi stated that the training on the BAMIS system would go a long way to eliminating or greatly reducing the Out Of School Children Phenomenon in the State.
He said that it was imperative to key into the program as the system enables teachers and school administrators to monitor learners’ attendance in real-time and with the use of smart devices, the system collects attendance records, manages, stores and processes the data.
Earlier in his welcome address, the SUBEB Executive Chairman, Prof. Femi Akinwumi, who was represented by the SUBEB Permanent Secretary, Mr Afolabi Adebiyi described digitalization as the current approach to solving the existing issues relating to the old method of data gathering and storage.
Prof. Akinwumi stated that it is vital that teachers are equipped with the necessary training tools that can make them function optimally in their various teaching-learning activities, especially in the modern ICT generation.
He stressed that teachers and administrators of basic education who are saddled with the responsibility of shaping the lives of pupils must be armed with the modern trend of teaching/learning, monitoring, report writing, data collection analysis, storage and retrieval in line with global best practices and the 6-point agenda of the Oyebanji led administration.
The SUBEB Boss affirmed that a strong database is needed for education planning and implementation which would in turn provide comprehensive information on the Out of out-of-school children in the State and curb the phenomenon.
While reiterating the commitment of the Oyebanji-led administration to teachers’ development, he urged the participants to take full advantage of the training to improve their digital skills for the overall development of basic education programmes in the State.
In a goodwill message, the UBEC Executive Secretary, Dr. Hammid Bobboyi who was represented by Mr Yakubu Achimugu, lauded Governor Oyebanji for always taking advantage of UBEC interventions to elevate the basic education status of the State.
Dr. Bobboyi mentioned that the BAMIS system generates daily attendance reports that would help the school administrators track learners’ presence with high accuracy and efficiency.
Bobboyi noted that learners and their parents would receive real-time notification via SMS or Email whenever a student is absent. “This does not only increase parents’ involvement in their child’s academic activities, but it maximizes learners’ engagement rate in class thus improving their performances”, he said.