World Bank representative lauds Oyo govt. for robust report on state’s educational performance

THE World Bank Education Specialist, Mr. Tunde Adekola has commended Oyo state government over 2016/2017 Annual School Census report as a veritable data that can be used as tool for policy dialogue. 

The World Bank representative who gave this commendation on Thursday during the presentation and dissemination of report to the key stakeholders in the state held at Teachers House, Samonda, Ibadan, described the report as a document to influence decisions and policies in education for the coming years.

Adekola noted that education is the best deliverable concern of World Bank and the data released from this annual report will help to determine enrolment rate and others to measure performance.

“Oyo state has better educational services for all. The report will help in appropriating resources and making appropriate decisions base on available data to enhance efficiency. This is the acceptable practice world over and an exercise like this will improve on educational standard and efficiency of the state’s educational system.

“Available data in this report can be used as tools for policy dialogue. This will help the policy makers like governors, commissioners to make appropriate decisions that can improve the state’s educational development”, Adekola said.

Corroborating him, the state commissioner for Education, Science and Technology, Professor Adeniyi Olowofela said Oyo State is one of the few states that has benefited from the World Bank grant. “We have also received supports from UNICEF and other international donors.

“This report will assist all stakeholders in a long way as far as education is concerned in the state. This report is an excellent one and a report like this can win grants even without demanding for one. The report is important to plan well and germane to the success of educational development.

“We will give the PDF of this report to ICT centres and make it available online to everyone. As the results of our giant stride in education, we have been invited in London to give account of our excellent performance in education”, the commissioner said.

Also speaking, the Director, Planning, Research and Statistics, Mrs. Aminat Atere noted that data gathering and usage is germane to robust planning not only in education sector but all other social services.

In her words : “this document today resulted from several activities which included planning meetings of heads of education sectors with UNICEF officials, training of enumerators, supervisors and coordinators, field work involving administration and retrieval of information, annual validation of the raw data then inputting of data into the Education Management Information System (EMIS) server through a network system of computers using designated software. The inputted data was then cleaned, an interim report was generated and presented to the stakeholders for comments and adoption.