NTI trains only 5% teachers annually – DG

Kaduna

National Teachers Institute (NTI) has trained only five per cent of teachers through in-service training programmes, the Director- General, Prof. Dahuwa Garba Azare, has said.
According to him, it is not fair when NTI is blamed for non-performing teachers even if such teachers never passed through its training programmes.
He, however, added that NTI has made quality its watchword and any teacher that underwent its training would never be the same again.
Addressing the flag-off of monitoring and evaluation of academic standards in the NTI’s study centres of the South-south zone at Edokpolor Grammar School, Benin City, he said: “NTI has always been subjected to unfounded criticisms that are based on sentiments rather than on empirical evidence. Many times, people blame NTI for non-performing teachers irrespective of whether or not he/she was a product of the Institute.”
Continuing, he said: “This is not a fair deal as the institute trains only five percent of the total teachers produced annually and even at that through in-service training.
He was represented by the Acting Registrar and Secretary to the Institute’s Council, Malam Mahmud Mohammed Usman.
Azare said the quality control measure such as screening of the students’ credentials, conduct of orientation for new students and newly recruited facilitators and ensuring that only qualified facilitators are on the programme yielded the desired results.
“It is necessary to emphasise that unlike the conventional mode of instruction, NTI operates the open and distance learning system. The emphasis is on taking education to the learner through various media such as course books, audio, and video tapes and CDs, internet, mobile devices, computer tablets, etc.”
Executive Secretary National Commission for Colleges of Education, Prof. Bappah Aliyu Muhammad, said the Commission had the statutory responsibility of regulating and supervising teacher education at the sub-degree level.
He noted that the monitoring and evaluation aimed at finding out the extent to which the NCE awarding institutions are following implementation of the programme.