…Hosts national economic council group
Priscilla Ofunre Ado-Ekiti
The Ekiti State Government has said it would not relent in driving initiatives, policies, and programmes aimed at improving the standard of living of the people and accelerate the state’s human capital development.
The deputy governor of the state, Otunba Bisi Egbeyemi, said this during an interactive session to mark the end of a two-day working visit of the National Economic Council’s Human Capital Development Core Working Group to the State.
Egbeyemi assured that the state government, in line with its human capital development plans would consider the report of the Working group on how the state can further improve on its strategies at improving human capital development in the state.
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According to a statement by his Special Assistant (Media), Odunayo Ogunmola, Egbeyemi stressed that training and retraining of teachers in the modern teaching practice of impacting knowledge to students, must be prioritise to drive the implementation of Human Capital Development in the education sector.
The Deputy Governor explained that infrastructure development in the schools must be accompanied with the development of capacity building with emphasis on computer literacy.
Said he, “We must do more in terms of training and retraining of our teachers in the modern teaching methods of impacting knowledge to our students, in the education sector there is need to commensurate the provision of infrastructures with adequate training of our teachers in order for them to be able to dispense knowledge to our children as appropriate.
“They must improve on the ICT literacy levels to be able to utilise the computer based facilities made available by government in their institutions. If we must get improvement in this area we must focus on human development above physical development.”
The working visit featured a courtesy call on the Chairman of Ekiti State Council of Traditional Rulers who is also the Alawe of Ilawe-Ekiti, Oba Adebanji Alabi, and sessions with stakeholders drawn from the Ministry of Health and Human Services, Primary Health Care Development Agency, Ministry of Education, State Universal Basic Education Board, Teaching Service Commission, Sustainable Development Goal, Bureau of Employment, Labour and Productivity, among others.
The Director General, Ekiti Bureau of Employment, Labour and Productivity and the State Focal Person for Human Capital Development in the state, Mr. Lanre Ogunjobi, explained that the State government as part of its plans for human capital development had open a register list for unemployed graduates with a view to addressing the menace of unemployment.
Ogunjobi also disclosed that the State Government just concluded the recruitment exercise for primary school teachers and had commenced the recruitment process for secondary schools teachers in the State.
Also the Chairman, Ekiti State Universal Education Board (SUBEB), Prof. Francisca Aladejana, mentioned that Governor Fayemi had paid the counterpart funds for UBEC (Universal Basic Education Commission) which had enabled the board to assess funds that would be used for renovations of schools and provision of basic learning materials for pupils in the public primary schools.
Aladejana revealed that the state government as part of plans to increase the enrolment of children in schools made laws that forbid students from hawking during schools hours and ordered free and
compulsory education for all school children in the state.
The working visit, according to the Senior Technical Adviser to the Vice President and Coordinator, of Human Capital Development, Core Working Group, Yosola Akinbi, was to develop a strategy and action plan that would increase Ekiti State investment on Human Capital Development.
Akinbi during her presentation noted that Human Capital Development revolved around three thematic areas; health and nutrition, education, and labour force participation.
At the end of the interactive session, participants were expected to come out work with working plans and strategies that would drive the implementation of Human Capital Development in the state.