{"id":225310,"date":"2025-12-16T12:43:05","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T12:43:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ycdei.com\/?p=225310"},"modified":"2025-12-16T12:45:28","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T12:45:28","slug":"symposium-on-70-years-of-universal-basic-education-in-southwest-nigeria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ycdei.com\/?p=225310","title":{"rendered":"Symposium on 70 Years of Universal Basic Education in Southwest Nigeria"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

YcDEI was privileged to be represented by the Executive Director, Prof. Adefunke Ekine, at the\u00a0symposium commemorating\u00a070 years of Universal Basic Education (UBE) in Southwest Nigeria, hosted by the Dawn Commission. It examined\u00a0the historical foundations, current state, and future direction\u00a0of education in the Southwest and Nigeria. The event also featured the pre-launch of \u201cOn \u201955 We Stand: Nigeria\u2019s First Free Education Scheme\u201d by Ola Opesan<\/strong>, an education consultant and one of the panelists.

The gathering brought together policymakers, educators, technologists, leaders, and media stakeholders to explore sustainable education models for the region. Notable contributors included a representative\u00a0of\u00a0Chief Tokunbo Ajasin, Dr. I. A. Salami,\u00a0Dr.\u00a0Suleiman Adediran, Prof. Abayomi Arigbabu (via recorded address), Prof. Adefunke O. Ekine,\u00a0Dr.\u00a0Olusola Ayoola, Hon. Olawale Oshun, and Tunde Kelani.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A short teaser was displayed at the beginning, featuring school-age children struggling with basic English pronunciation, which set the tone for critical discussions on the declining quality of public education. The key speakers\u00a0traced UBE\u2019s roots to the 1955 Free Education Policy in Western Nigeria under Obafemi Awolowo and Adekunle Ajasin, noting that while education was once heavily funded and widely accessible, current realities reflect a significant decline. Education budget allocation has significantly dropped from about 36% to 6.7%, literacy stands at 68%, and out-of-school children are estimated to be between 6 and 11 million, and 60% are girls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Proposed solutions included improved planning and accountability, increased financing, project-based learning, wider curriculum consultation, stronger policy impact assessments, investment in STEM\/STEAM and digital literacy, and better preparation of pupils for future work demands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prof. Adefunke Ekine,\u00a0in her presentation, emphasized lessons from the past, highlighting how early planning, strong political will, and significant budgetary investment drove success in the 1950s. She stressed that investing in early childhood education\u00a0was one of the ways forward because\u00a090% of brain development occurs\u00a0at that point and is critical. Technology integration and adequate funding are also necessary to improve policy implementation, resources, and outcomes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hon. Olawale Oshun and Tunde Kelani, one of the first beneficiaries of the free education, gave their personal reflections on\u00a0the transformative impact of free education on their lives. The symposium also spotlighted Ogun State\u2019s digital student-tracking platform, praised for improving transparency and accountability, with recommendations for adoption across other Southwest states. The symposium concluded with the official launch of \u201cOn \u201955 We Stand,\u201d\u00a0authored by Mr. Ola Opesan, and a strong consensus on the need to honour history while advancing bold, forward-thinking education policies for the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

YcDEI was privileged to be represented by the Executive Director, Prof. Adefunke Ekine, at the\u00a0symposium commemorating\u00a070 years of Universal Basic Education (UBE) in Southwest Nigeria, hosted by the Dawn Commission. It examined\u00a0the historical foundations, current state, and future direction\u00a0of education in the Southwest and Nigeria. The event also featured the pre-launch of \u201cOn \u201955 We […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":225312,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"give_campaign_id":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[61],"class_list":["post-225310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-education"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ycdei.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ycdei.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ycdei.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ycdei.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ycdei.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=225310"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ycdei.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225310\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":225315,"href":"https:\/\/ycdei.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225310\/revisions\/225315"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ycdei.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/225312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ycdei.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=225310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ycdei.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=225310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ycdei.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=225310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}