The Director General and Chief Executive, National Teachers’ Institute (NTI), Prof. Garba Dahuwa Azare, has commended the Commonwealth of Learning (CoL) for its support and collaboration for bridging learning gap among Nigerian teachers.
Prof. Azare disclosed this while delivering his welcome address at the Opening Ceremony of a five-day workshop on “Course Development for Online and Offline Delivery, for Learning Recovery Programme” for teachers from Kebbi and Sokoto states, at the SMASE National INSET Centre, NTI, Kaduna.
The NTI DG/CE lauded CoL for supporting various programmes at the institute including the current workshop which aimed at bridging the gap of learning areas lost during the Covid-19 and other areas of utmost importance, including security and entrepreneurship.
“I will like to commend the Commonwealth of Learning for taking such a giant step towards helping to train teachers in Kebbi and Sokoto states on the online delivery of lessons,’’ he said.
According to the DG, the Institute held the first leg of the workshop between May 31, 2021 and June 3, 2021 on “Scaling Teacher Training for Learning Recovery Programme for the states of Kebbi and Sokoto,’’ which mainly aimed at bridging the gap of the learning areas lost during the Covid-19.
Prof. Azare noted that the workshop, which aimed at supporting teachers to use the developed podcasts to achieve learning areas lost during the Covid-19 pandemic that forced school closure, however appealed that the scope be expanded to cover teachers in the other 34 states of the federations and the FCT, Abuja.
He said the Covid-19 impacted on various sectors of the society including learning, which affected several people causing outcry, “it was in response to the outcry that international agencies and organisations such as Commonwealth of Learning (CoL) deemed it appropriate to come up with intervention programmes such as Learning Recovery Programme‘’.
Prof. Azare said the development would help to place teachers on equal pedestal to operate seamlessly across all the geopolitical zones of the country and also assist in making popular the activities of CoL as a global champion for quality teacher education and professional development.
The NTI boss urged the participants to learn from the workshop, so as to equip themselves to master the skills of online delivery of lessons and enable their ability to cascade it to their colleagues on their return home.
