For Nigeria to achieve Sustainable Development Goals 2030, the country must invest hugely in structural training programmes for teachers.
UNICEF Education Specialist, Manar Ahmed who said this virtually in Kano , during the Media dialogue on SDGs as Child Rights, said the investment must be in time and financial resources.
Manar stated that Nigeria is facing staggering crisis with learning outcomes being one of the lowest of the basic education sub sector.
“In sub Saharan Africa, 87 percent of children are in learning poverty as they do not have basic literacy by age 10. It is not that Nigeria lacks the right policy but Nigeria is facing staggering crisis with learning outcomes being one of the lowest 70 percent of the children in school are not achieving basic foundational skills.”
She identified low public spending on education and under prepared workforce as factors mostly responsible for the poor learning outcomes.
The UNICEF Education Expert further disclosed that 69percent of teachers at the basic schools mostly in private schools are unqualified, (2017 National Personnel Audit).
“Between the time of carrying out the 2017 Personnel Audit by Nigeria’s Universal Basic Education and now there has been huge changes as regards the national assessment on learning outcomes.”
She advocates that teachers themselves should drive the process of training thereby placing them at the heart of the schemes.
“It is not about teacher training but about action, improving teaching in the classroom is key under the right environment to enable this change huge investment is required in time and finances.”
Manar said it was time for Nigeria to move beyond training in theories to on the job training thereby creating opportunity for feedback.
She emphasised that action plan is crucial in getting result oriented teacher professional development systems.
The UNICEF Education Expert identified enabling environment, self assessment, re-assessment and supervisory assessment as crucial to achieving scaled up foundational literacy and numeracy skills in Nigeria basic schools.
