By AbdulRaheem Aodu
Kaduna
The National Teachers Institute is set to train 16,500 teachers across the country as part of efforts to improve teacher quality and attain the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) target, NTI Director-General, Prof. Garba Azare has said.
Speaking during the flag-off of National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE) Monitoring and Evaluation Programme of Academic Standard in NCE Distant Learning Centers in North west zone, Azare said phase III of the evaluation would take place in Kaduna, Kano, Katsina and Jigawa states between October 11 and 14, while phase IV is slated for Zamfara, Sokoto and Kebbi states between October 17 and 21 and phase V for Gombe, Taraba and Bauchi states between October 25 and 29, 2016.
The NTI boss said the evaluation programme had been carried out in the South zones between 2012 and 2015 by NCCE, adding that it was aimed at assessing the academic standards in the NCE distant learning study centers, as part of quality assurance mechanism put in place by the Commission.
He said that lot of resources were required to develop education in Nigeria, adding that the evaluation and assessment targets facilities used in training and retraining of teachers.
“The next SDG training in November this year would address 16,500 teachers across the country, it is an annual event. NTI has trained over 700,000 teachers in the country.
“We are not conventional institution, we are a direct learning institution, lots of institutions need our service. We do lots of training and retraining of teachers. The activities of our study centers are satisfactory but lots of resources are needed for development of education in Nigeria.”
The Executive Secretary of NCCE, Prof. Bappah Muhammadu in his remarks said the Commission is saddled with the responsibility of regulating supervising teacher education at pre degree level in Nigeria to ensure that teachers supply for basic level education is of best quality.
He said part of efforts put in place to ensure quality teacher production and to address the issue of low quality NCE graduates in basic schools is why NCCE is carrying out the monitoring and evaluation of academic standards in all NCE awarding institutions with the objective of finding out the extent to which they are implementing policies and programs of sub-degree teachers education.
“Between 2008 and now, the Commission has successfully undertaken the exercise in the 21 federal, 42 states 14 private colleges of education and all the NTI study centers in the South west, South east and South-south geopolitics zones.
“NTI programmes have been in place for long, its NTI that upgrade grade III teachers to grade II and grade II to NCE, no institution has done what NTI has done training and retraining of teachers. We are very satisfied with the activities and performance of NTI, but NTI needs to get its own training centers, institutions and government should help put these together,” Prof. Aliyu added.
