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By Madu Obi
Former Aviation Minister and vice chairman of the Anambra State Educational Advisory Council, Chief Osita Chidoka has presented the report of the council to the state governor, Professor Chukwuma Soludo.
Titled, “Solution Agenda: Shaping the Future of Anambra State through Innovative Educational Strategies,” the report was presented to the governor at the Governor's Lodge, Awka.
The council has 18 members, with Governor Soludo as chairman and Chief Osita Chidoka as Vice Chairman.The state Commissioner for Education, Prof Ngozi Chuma Udeh, is the secretary.
The council was inaugurated to develop new pathways for delivering quality education and improving learning outcomes for students in the Anambra school system.
Briefing the governor during the presentation, Chidoka said: "Anambra State, as of the 2022/2023 academic session, had 1098 public and 2694 private early child care and primary schools. The total number of students in the public segment was 255,897 pupils."
"In the secondary school segment, there were 263 public and 769 private secondary schools. The student population in the public secondary school was 133,741."
He informed the governor that Anambra State had consistently ranked within the top three in the country in WAEC and JAMB scores over the years.
According to Chidoka, the council invited stakeholders across the education spectrum for inputs, held several virtual meetings, and identified and reviewed the educational framework for six countries across the continents, with emphasis on Africa.
Among the council's key recommendations were:
*A new funding mechanism that includes community participation;
*an education trust fund, and improved funding for teacher recruitment and training;
*Repurpose the state’s multiple education platforms into a single technology platform capable of providing students, parents, inspectors, and teachers access to Information.
Other recommendations are design the school inspection and supervision framework to enable grading and ranking of all schools in Anambra State along pre-set criteria like quality of Infrastructure, performance in state standardized tests, learning outcomes, student's performance in national examinations, and teacher qualifications, attendance, and performance.
Still on recommendations, *Align the state’s aspirations with global standards by joining the Programme for International Students Assessments (PISA) as a sub-national government. "Anambra State should dream globally. One of the critical lessons from PISA 2022 was that lower-income nations could improve education outcomes by prioritizing teacher quality over class sizes.
In his speech, Soludo described the content of the report as excellent and its recommendations as innovative.
The governor promptly directed the operationalization of the report's key recommendations, which include introducing a new funding model for public schools in line with his vision of free and qualitative education already being implemented in all public schools.
He also said that the state would set new standards for school inspection and supervision, as well as developing a strategy for grading and ranking schools across the state.
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