By Roseline Olawuni*l
As the state of Osun joins the rest of the world in marking the 2021 International Literacy Day, the State Government under Mr Adegboyega Oyetola has reiterated the commitment of government to the provision of qualitative and functional 21st century education across the state.
The idea of an International Literacy Day was born at the World Conference of Ministers of Education on the eradication of illiteracy held in Tehran in 1965. This day was also adopted as part of the UN's sustainable development goals program in 2015.
In a statement made available to newsmen by Osun Commissioner for Education, Hon Folorunsho Oladoyin on the occasion of the 2021 International Literacy Day celebration, the commissioner said since the inception of the present administration, the Governor has made it clear that strong literacy and numeracy must be the foundation of any primary education if we want the secondary and tertiary education to improve.
He further stated that the 21st century education also requires moving away from memory based learning to ICT assisted learning where creativity, innovation and sound understanding will be encouraged and teachers will be made to be main facilitators of learning to the pupils.
The statement reads in part, "the theme for this year's celebration which is "Literacy for human-centered recovery: Narrowing the digital divide" is almost speaking to our policy review in Osun which is to make Information Communication Technology (ICT) the bedrock of learning.
"The 21st century learning requires us to move away from memory based learning to ICT assisted learning where the focus will be on creativity, innovation and sound understanding of concepts. Our Classroom work will be activities based, students engaging and our teachers will become facilitators of learning to pupils.
"For us in Osun, we believe in a solid foundation for our pupils, that is why we are advocating for a strong literacy and strong numeracy at the foundation level of education because we know that it is only through this that the secondary and tertiary levels of education can grow into what we want.
"This explains why the state government has organised numerous training workshops for public primary school teachers which includes, training workshop for Early Childhood Care Development and Education teacher caregivers, workshop for Basic Education Quality Assurance officers for effective school monitoring and evaluation".
Hon. Oladoyin concludes through the statement that the state government will continue to take steps to spread literacy across the state through effective implementation of the reviewed and improved education policies.