As part of efforts to provide quality education in Nigeria’s capital in accordance with the global best practice, the authority of the Nigerian Federal territory administration has flagged off capacity building for key Education officers on Online and Multimedia Education.
The exercise which commenced with the Training of Trainers on Online and Multimedia Education for Officers of Education Boards and Departments, Heads of School and Teachers had two hundred and seventy participants in attendance.
Speaking while flagging off the exercise, the FCT Permanent Secretary, Mr. Olusade Adesola disclosed that, the use of ICT in the classroom is giving both teachers and learners new frontiers in teaching and learning attractively in and out of the classroom.
Adesola further stated that Online and Multimedia education has provided a way out for mitigating the challenge of the learning gap created by the pandemic and any other similar eventualities.
Adesola who was represented by the Director office of the permanent secretary, Mr. Udom Samuel Atang, said information and communication technologies are challenging the traditional process of doing things in every aspect of life in today’s world.
He added that the COVID-19 pandemic exposed their unpreparedness for emergent issues which would not have been a much challenge if they were technology compliant especially in their education sector.
The Permanent Secretary also revealed that the inadequacy of infrastructure and low capacity of the educators exacerbated pre-existing education disparities by reducing the opportunities for many of the most vulnerable children, youth, and adults especially those living in poor or rural areas.
According to him, “Traditional methods of education delivery and management is been discarded for new technologies in developed economies that we are all aspiring”.
” If we are aspiring to be an envious nation we cannot afford to continue doing things in the same way and expect better results”.
” This, we will continue to do leveraging on the partnership provided by developing partners such as KOICA, UNICEF and others as well as the federal ministry of education”, he added.
Adesola also commended the partnerships of development partners like UNICEF, KOICA, and the Federal Ministry of Education who he said have always provided the needed support to take education in FCT to an enviable status.
While appealing to the participants to take the training very seriously so that they will be able to translate same to others, Adesola said the administration hopes that the outcome of the capacity building will trigger greater efficiency for the FCT Educators in lesson delivery and yield improved performance of the children.
Earlier, the Director Department of Policy Planning Research and Statistics of the FCT, Dr Mohammed Sani Ladan explained that, with the outbreak of the COVID -19 pandemic, there was distortion in social economics activities of which education was hard hit and Schools were forced to close for months which resulted to the creation of learning gaps.
Dr. Ladan added that, the training will be conducted in three phases beginning with directors and quality assurance officers, while heads of schools and teachers will be grouped into batches to attend based on COVID-19 protocols.
He added that the outcome of the training will be a shift from existing document-based administration of education to digital, thereby improved efficiency of school administrative work, educators and evaluators having been equipped with skills and capacity to develop multimedia content to aid teaching and learning and promote learners attitude and skills for remote /online learning.
The capacity building received by these educators is being stepped down to 272 education officers made up of 32 key officers of education Boards, departments, and 240 heads of schools and teachers from selected 48 public schools on online and multimedia education.
These sets of officers when trained are expected to step down same to other educators at their boards and department and schools.
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