Steer Initiative Launches its Teachers’ Digital Training Program
In 2017, a lot of Nigerians expressed their dismay over the failure of 22,000 teachers who failed the competency test conducted by the Kaduna state government for its teachers. Early in the year, the Federal Government through the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria also announced that more than 50% of Nigeria teachers are not qualified in primary and secondary school nationwide and this include private schools where teachers lack the basic teaching education qualification which is the National Certificate Examination NCE as stipulated by the National Policy on Education.
Reports like this continue to show a wide deficit in teachers’ capacity in the country and importantly the need to intensify effort at improving the situation. While the regular assessment of teachers is a plausible action, it’s important to seek supplementary actions to upskill these teachers. This year, the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) revealed a deficit of 277,537 teachers in the country. This reiterates the need for upscaling the available teachers in the labour force.
It thus becomes necessary for all relevant Ministries, Departments and Agencies to invest in programs and initiatives geared at this. Furthermore, private organisations, multinationals firms, non-governmental organizations and other members of the civil society alike should support the government in achieving this early enough.
With the COVID-19 epidemic, there has been an immediate and urgent demand for new skills, notably digital skills, in order to maintain and improve education delivery in the country. A recent report by the Universal Basic Education Commission, UBEC showed that in the country’s public primary schools, more than 60% of instructors lack the digital literacy needed to work effectively in an e-learning setting.
It is against this backdrop that Steer Initiative has conceptualised its Teachers’ Training Program to support the ongoing efforts to address teachers’ skills gap in the country. The teachers’ training program is designed to provide a wide range of management, digital and interpersonal skills of educators; and provide an opportunity for teachers to network, share experiences and request for tailored training. Educators learn extensively how to adopt digital tools and technologies to improve classroom work and delivery.
The organisation launched the first edition of its monthly training program on October 8, 2021 with about thirty (30) educators in attendance. The training focused on introducing teachers to the use of Google tools such as Google Slides, Docs, Sheets amongst others for classroom use.
The digital training sessions are planned to run throughout the year with additional training sessions in November and December 2021. This training will build on the session in October, exploring a deep dive into the Google tools (Google Classroom, Google Drive) introduced during the first training in October.
The organisation encourages teachers from all parts of the country and continent to leverage the opportunity to improve their digital skills, thereby contributing to the global aspiration of building digital citizens who are adequately prepared to meet global needs and trends. Registration is open and can be done through this link.
