Minister of Education Mallam Adamu Adamu said the decay that pervades the country’s education sector requires urgent intervention by the three tiers of government, that is, federal, states and local governments.
The minister stated this at the commencement of the nationwide training of teachers, organised by the National Teachers’ Institute (NTI) in Calabar, Cross River state recently.
Adamu, represented by the minister of state for education, Professor Anthony Anwukah, said attention must be paid to human capital development, of which teacher training and retraining programmes are most central to addressing the decay in the sector.
He expressed the federal government’s commitment to boosting teacher education, adding, “it is against this backdrop that the federal government is committing huge resources to train and retrain teachers to put them on better pedestal to be able to discharge their responsibilities diligently.”
He charged the participants to take advantage of the five workshop series being rolled out by the NTI to improve their knowledge and teaching techniques.
Director-General of NTI, Professor Garba Azare, said the institute was determined to improve the quality of teachers in the country.
He said the economic and political developments in the country were predicated on quality education, adding that the institute would continue to play its role by regularly training teachers to improve their skills.
He commended the federal government for its continuous support for the NTI and for paying attention to the training of teachers. The training, which held from February 4 to 8, 2019, was attended by 3,700 selected teachers across the country.
Similarly in Kogi state, Mallam Adamu Adamu charged stakeholders in the education sector to work hard to rescue the sector from total collapse.
The minister gave the charge over the weekend in Lokoja, Kogi state capital, at the closing ceremony of the 2018 nationwide capacity building workshop organised by the National Teachers Institute (NTI) for teachers at the basic level under the Sustainable Development Goals project.
Adamu represented by minister of state for education, Professor Anthony Anwuka, said President Muhammadu Buhari was committed to providing leadership through the provision of functional education. He said teachers’ continuing professional development is key to the revamping of the falling standard of education in the country.
The minister stated that the present administration was giving support to building the capacity of teachers through initiatives such as SDGs project, which is aimed at enhancing the output of teachers.
“We hope the participants of this year’s edition will help to share their experiences with their colleagues back in their work stations. The federal government is planning to support states to generate accurate data of their teachers in terms of their quality and quantity.
“This will assist us in determining the skill gaps and the corresponding training needs of teachers across all states of the federation. The implication of this is that NTI will have quite a lot to do in terms of floating relevant trainings and workshops for teachers in Nigeria.”
