The Edo State Government has said that public basic and junior secondary schools in the state will operate three days in a week, beginning from June 13 to reduce the impact of higher fuel price on teachers and students.
The Chairman, Edo State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB), Mrs. Ozavize Salami, disclosed this to journalists in Benin after a meeting between the Head of Service and other government functionaries on the government’s directive on the three workdays.
Salami said, “Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday have been chosen to be the days for our children to go to school while the school will be closed for Thursday and Friday.
“Our plan for this period focuses on maximizing e-learning, ensuring the children cover the curriculum they ought to cover. They will stay for six weeks before vacation. For administrative reasons, we have chosen the first three days of the week as students will come to school.
“We have increased the learning hours for basic school across the State by one hour and two hours for junior secondary schools to achieve the school curriculum and integrated the timetable for Thursdays and Fridays into Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays.”
Also speaking, in a meeting with Permanent Secretaries as well as heads of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), the Edo State Head of Service, Anthony Okungbowa Esq., assured that the reduced office workdays will not affect the productivity and efficiency of the Service as the workers are able to work with their devices and the e-gov platform no matter their location.
The e-gov platform was introduced by the Governor in 2021, in furtherance of the government’s effort to leverage technology to boost service delivery in the State, ensuring a switch over from analogue to e-governance.
According to the HOS, “This reduction of work days in Edo State will in no way affect our performance and productivity negatively. It appears that the Governor anticipated this situation when he introduced e- governance in 2021.
“The Edo State became effectively an e-governance State on November 1, 2021. Since then, government has invested so much in the project that all 72 MDAs have been on-boarded on the platform, thus making Edo Public Service about the most digitalized in Nigeria.”