An Investigation into the Improvement of Edo Basic Education Sector Transformation (Edo Best) on the Old Curriculum

This study examined the improvement of Edo Basic Education Sector Transformation (Edo Best) on the old curriculum and its effects on children academic performance in public schools in Esan Central Local Government area of Edo State. The main purpose of this study was to examine the advantages of Edo Best program over the old/formal curriculum and to find out if there is a relationship between Edo Best program and the academic performance of children in Esan central local government area Edo state, three hypotheses where formulated to guide the study. The study adopted the descriptive research design. A sample of 46 was drawn from a population of 286 teachers and 120 from the population of 7,266 pupils in Esan central local government area of Edo state. In order to test these hypotheses, two research instruments were used to collect the data as follows: questionnaires and pupils achievement test were used to measure the academic performance of pupil’s before and during EdoBest. Data obtained were analyzed using descriptive statistics, levene’s test for equality of variance and simple percentage and t-test at 5% level of significant. Results obtained revealed the following: there was no significant difference in the academic performance of pupils before and during Edo Best but the high percentage of pupil’s response to the program shows that Edo best is more advantageous to the pupils than the formal one in the ratio of 1to 5 (1:5) in Esan central local government area Edo state ,it was therefore concluded that the teaching of just two subjects literacy and numeracy does not necessarily improve academic performance, but that the learning environment, the learning materials/teaching aids play a big role in motivating and stimulating the interest of pupils in public primary schools in Esan central local government area of Edo state. It was then recommended that Edo best planners, educators and other relevant stakeholders should come together to chart the way forward by inviting experienced teachers as well as head teachers in the field to discuss the better way to include their welfare and other areas of concern in the curriculum so as to ensure 100% success of the programme.