The Northeast Development Commision (NEDC), has on Monday, Jan.23 began a two weeks training for public school teachers in the six states of the northeast zone of Nigeria.
The training is part of de commission’s agenda to rekindle learning in public schools that have been destroyed by the years of armed conflict in the region.
The training programme was being funded by Education Endowment Fund (EEF) unit of the NEDC.
The board chairman of NEDC-EEF, Asma’u Mohammed, informed that 1,800 teachers had been trained in the first phase, and another 1,800 are to be trained in the second phase for two weeks.
Hajia Asma’u also disclosed further that the Board and Management of the Commission have developed and completed the implementation of other programmes to address critical needs like “Provision of classrooms, desks and essential learning materials to support the resuscitation of the comfortable learning environment at the basic educational level, in each of the 112 Local Government Areas of the North East, and a Phase 2 of the project is about to commence.
“In the first phase of our teacher training, 1800 teachers (300 per State) were trained over a one-week period,” she said.
Hajiya Asma’u said stemming from the feedback received, and lessons learnt from the appraisal of the first outing, the duration of the training has been increased to two weeks with more emphasis on core subject areas.
“Additionally, to ensure more attention on teachers, we limited the slots for administrative staff to only 15 each for the Primary and Junior Secondary School segments.
“To guarantee value for money, we have enshrined 13 cardinal points, ranging from quality of training manuals, method of delivery, and strict monitoring of attendance of the participants, amongst others. Upon this, our consultants will be assessed to determine their effectiveness and prospects for future engagement by us.
“This will surely complement the NEDC and in no distant future immensely contribute towards achieving the strategic objectives of the Commission.”
The facilitating firm for the training of the 300 teachers in Borno state, LIMO Holdings, Nigeria Limited, said the participants are to be trained in Borno state for two weeks.
The CEO of LIMO Holdings, Dr Lawan Bukar Alhaji, noted that the exact number of participants are spread across the other five states of the subregion.
The Managing Director and CEO of NEDC, Goni Alkali, who declared the workshop open, was represented by a General Manager at the Commission, Saadatu Shehu.
The MD said, “the two weeks training was in line with the Commission’s core mandate, which is to tackle all manners of illiteracy in the northeast in its quest to achieve enhanced human capacity and capital development in the region through scholarships.”
“As earlier mentioned, short term capacity building improvement of basic education has been the reason the EEF was created under the humanitarian directory to ensure excellent learning and teaching in our educational institutions.
“The two weeks capacity building for the teachers is an intervention strategy, and it is expected that the teachers will be motivated for self-efficacy and performances.”
The EEF Board of Trustees was inaugurated on the 7th of August 2020 as a specialised body that could fast-track NEDC’s intervention in the education sub-sector in the North East Geo-political zone, which has been ravaged by the over a decade-old Boko Haram insurgency.
According to a report by The Humanitarian Times, the 13-year-old armed conflict in the northeast has claimed the lives of well over 2,295 teachers and destroyed more than 1,400 classrooms across the northeast region.
This attack on the public education system has adversely impacted both the quality of learning and diminished access to education in the northeast.
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Bay States News 