By Emem Idio, Yenagoa

Bayelsa State Governor, Senator Douye Diri, has reaffirmed his administration’s commitment to transforming the education sector in the state through science, technology, and foundational learning.

The state Commissioner for Education, Dr Gentle Emelah, made this known on Monday in a statement in Yenagoa which highlighted Governor Diri’s contributions at the 2025 Education World Forum that held in London.

Diri who was represented by Emelah disclosed that the Governor Diri led Bayelsa’s approach to building an inclusive and resilient education system in the face of ongoing environmental and socio-economic challenge adding that Education is not just a policy priority but a foundation of inclusive development and long-term stability.

He shared how Bayelsa is responding to disruptions such as seasonal flooding, oil pollution, and learning losses caused by the COVID-19 pandemic through innovative strategies rooted in data and equity.

He further disclosed that the heart of these reforms is the BayelsaPRIME which means, Bayelsa Promoting Reforms to Improve and Modernise Education, is a foundational learning program launched in 2023 with technical support from NewGlobe.

The programme he said has introduced digital learning tools across all public primary schools in the state, enabling real-time monitoring of teacher attendance and lesson delivery.

Diri said: “In our state, we also have the issue of oil pollution, which has exacerbated the effects of climate change. The other thing we did was that we went into digital learning at the basic education level with the introduction of BayelsaPRIME.”

“This method helped us to monitor what happens in our schools as well as provide the proper learning content for pupils in our primary schools.”

He said snce its launch, BayelsaPRIME has contributed to a surge in public school enrolment from 25,000 to over 40,000 pupils and has significantly improved early literacy as within just 19 weeks of implementation, the share of Primary 1 pupils unable to read a single word dropped by 20 percentage points.

Governor Diri also emphasised the importance of moving away from a focus solely on paper qualifications to a more hands-on, skills-based approach.

He added: “What we did when we came on board was move away from paper qualification towards science and technical education. Leveraging on science, technical, and vocational education strengthens our state in the area of job creation.

“My team and I are actually looking at how to introduce artificial intelligence in our curriculum. So our strength lies in our ability to sustain what we have started with science and technical education and get our people to key in, as opposed to producing young ones without the basic skills for the employment market.”

Diri also drew a direct link between educational investment and social stability saying, “If you do not build schools or key into education, the other option is to build prisons. Education is everything that a society needs. It is what liberates your mind and gives you the right personality that enables you to fit in anywhere you find yourself.”

According to him, the success of BayelsaPRIME has been driven by strong partnerships across government institutions, school communities, and teacher unions and disclosed future plans to introduce biometric teacher attendance systems to improve accountability.