Senior Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Sustainable Development Goals, Mrs Adejoke Adefulire has challenged state governments and State Universal Basic Education Boards to prioritise teachers’ training as a means of improving quality of education across the country.
Mrs Adefulire explained that “the SDG goals recognised the importance of quality teachers that without teachers we cannot achieve goal four of the SDG, and by achieving goal four, quality teachers’ education, it will affect others goals positively. SDG lay more emphasis on teachers training”.
Addressing a One day Stakeholders Capacity Building Workshop for Teachers under Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) organised by National Teachers Institute (NTI) in Kaduna, Adejoke, who was represented by Dr Ifenwa Ukaegbu, called on NTI to increase the tempo of its training, and to train more post basic and secondary school teachers on its Strengthening Mathematics and Science Education (SMASE) to improve teaching and learning of science in Nigerian schools.
According to her, government at all levels must pay attention to training of teachers in the area of mathematics and science subjects to strengthen science and mathematics subjects in public schools.
“State governments should partner NTI on SMASE training as Federal Government cannot do it alone. Most of our public schools lack science and mathematics teachers which is why government needs to prioritise teachers training in this country. There is no way a country can develop without good and qualified teachers to teach particularly science and mathematics to its younger generation,” she added.
The Desk officer SDGs, Federal Ministry of Education, Mrs Liman Khadija Ahmed called on SUBEBs and state commissioners of education to stop nominating non teachers for training.
“I’m calling on commissioners of education to make sure that only real teachers are nominated for SDGs trainings this is because we discovered that in the past none teachers were also sent to participate, ” she said.
The Director General NTI, Professor Garba Dahuwa Azare urged states to ensure that only competent teachers who can cascade the training down to their colleagues are nominated for the training. He commended all stakeholders in education for the support given to the Institute. He said NTI’s mandate is to train teachers and it will continue to do so because qualified teachers are key to development of any nation particularly in the area of science and mathematics.
