The Rotary Club Abuja Jabi Lakeside, Friday, trained 80 teachers selected from the public and private schools in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) on how to effectively manage students with disabilities.
The free training, which was held at the Junior Secondary School Jabi 1, Abuja, and tagged: “Train the Teacher’’, also trained participants on how they could source low-budget learning materials.
Speaking, the President of the Rotary Club Abuja Jabi Lakeside, Rotn. Olayinka Adekemi Aduloju said the training was organized to sharpen the skills and knowledge of the participants on how to effectively manage their students with disabilities.
She said: “ We organized this training for teachers to support them in sharpening their skills and knowledge and also to help them effectively manage students with disabilities.
“We decided to invest in our teachers to empower them so that they can provide quality education and make positive impacts in our society, especially in our students’ lives. We have over 12 schools and if we count from each, and we add them together, there are over 80 teachers that we are training today’’.
Also, a facilitator, Nguavese Idiabana, who spoke on: ‘’Making low-budget learning resources, called on the participants to turn themselves into ‘scavengers’ to pick materials that would aid their teaching.
Idiabana, who is also a Rotarian, said: “As we know, the price of things has gone up because of the rising dollar rates, and schools can no longer afford those things that will help in teaching children.
“You need to get them (students) attracted or interested in what you’re teaching them. So, I figured out that let me teach teachers how to source for things in their immediate environment that they can use to make their classes interesting.
” So for instance, I say that every teacher now in Nigeria should be a scavenger.
In the Nigerian parlance, we called them Baba Bombala. Nothing should be thrown away. As a teacher, we have to be creative. Anything should be imagined and put to good use in the classroom. So for instance, in this training today, we served sweets. I don’t believe the wrappers of the sweets should be thrown away because they can be used in the Arts and Crafts class’’.
One of the participants, Mr. Ebok Echera, thanked the Rotary Club for the training, adding that as a teacher, he had learnt to be patient with the students with disabilities.
