The UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL) has named Ibadan, Oyo state capital as one of the winners of the 2019 UNESCO Learning City Award, InsideOyo.com gathered.
The other cities around the world are: Aswan (Egypt), Chengdu (China), Heraklion (Greece), Medellín (Colombia), Melitopol (Ukraine), Petaling Jaya (Malaysia), Santiago (Mexico), Seodaemun-gu(Republic of Korea), and Sønderborg (Denmark).
According to the Learning City Award Jury, Ibadan, Nigeria and other cities have shown exemplary progress and commitment to promote education and lifelong learning at the local level.
Ibadan, Nigeria was awarded for its recent festival of learning offered interactive and varied activities and workshops for different target audiences, thereby reinforcing the concept of lifelong learning in the community.
“The city has also developed concrete objectives as part of its learning city plan and strong initiatives to engage important local groups such as ethnic minorities in rural areas,” UNESCO said.
Some of these initiatives are the OYOMESI Hackathon, Financial Literacy, Gbalumo (Cleaner City Initiatives), OYOMESI Job Experience (OJE) Scheme, WAEC Boot Camps, STEM Educational Workshop, Digital Literacy Programme, Social Enterprise and Education Enrichment Trips to LADOL, the production of the Compendium of Heroes, etc.
InsideOyo.com can report that most of the projects was championed by the Special Adviser to the Governor on Education, Dr Bisi Akin-Alabi who convened a Learning City Committee from all LGAs in the State after the 2017 educational summit in Cork, Ireland.
The UNESCO Learning City Award was established as part of the UNESCO Global Network of Learning Cities in 2015. It is an international biennium award, which is neither a designation nor a prize, but a recognition of exemplary progress made by cities in promoting inclusive education and lifelong learning in local communities. It also aims to publicly share good practice that can be used by cities around the world to develop sustainably through building learning cities. To be considered for the award, cities must be members of the UNESCO Global Network of Learning Cities. Award winners are selected by an international jury. The award is granted to a maximum of six cities per UNESCO region and one city per country.
