Taking ICT to teachers: A personal experience
The NCCE-COL workshop was dedicated to sensitizing the management of teacher education institutions on the challenges of integrating ICT into their institutions’ programmes as well as the need to devise strategies towards this end and also to build the capacity of teacher educators for integrating ICT into administration, teaching and learning in their institutions. It […]
The NCCE-COL workshop was dedicated to sensitizing the management of teacher education institutions on the challenges of integrating ICT into their institutions’ programmes as well as the need to devise strategies towards this end and also to build the capacity of teacher educators for integrating ICT into administration, teaching and learning in their institutions. It was seen to blend with the Federal Ministry of Education’s acclaimed Roadmap for the Education Sector which placed a high premium on ICT as the arrowhead for attaining the set goals for the nation’s education sector. This was underscored by the reference to the recent articulation of policy by which computer education is compulsory at all of education in the country, the development of the National Information Technology Framework (NITEF) for structuring and regulating IT education and development of a curricula for it in conjunction with the NCC among recent achievements of the ministry by Education Minister Ruqayyat Ahmed Rufa’i who was represented at the workshop.
The stage for recognizing the urgency for boosting ICT knowledge and capacity in the education sector was set with the disclosure of some statistics on the widening “digital divide” between developed and developing nations of the world and its implications on the challenge of reforming education to meet the complex needs and realities of the 21st Century, in the remarks made by COL’s Education Specialist on Teacher Education, Dr Abdurrahman Umar. Facts such as the sharp rise in the developing countries’ share of total world internet users from 44% in 2006 to 62% in 2011, wide disparities between regions in terms of available internet bandwidth, China accounting for 25%of the world internet users and 37 % in the developing world as well as Australia alone with 21 million people having more broadband subscribers than the whole of Africa raised eyebrows and a lot of concern among participants on the task at hand. Still, it was reassuring to hear from Dr Umar of COL’s active involvement in building capacity of governments and institutions in the Commonwealth to use ICT “confidently and creatively” to develop skills and knowledge needed for professional goals and integration with the rest of the world as was witnessed in the NCCE/COL Workshop.
A Consultative Meeting that preceded the workshop discussed extensively issues pertaining to building capacity and confidence of teacher educators in use of ICT, meeting the continuing professional development needs of teacher educators and addressing the needs and expectations of teacher educators interested in obtaining new ICT qualifications or upgrading existing qualifications. The workshop which drew teacher educators from Colleges of Education and universities as well as teacher support personnel in government institutions was expected to generate consensus among participants on a draft Concept Note on ICT Capacity Building and how it can be integrated into participating institutions, discuss good practices from different parts of the world on integrated use of ICT in teacher education, generate consensus on Curriculum Framework for ICT capacity building programme and develop an action plan for its implementation, among other outcomes.
The workshop was greatly enriched by the international perspective incorporated through the engagement of foreign and local experts in the persons of South Africa’s Maggie Verster and Professor Bamidele from Adamawa State University as lead consultants as well as participants from twelve Colleges of Education across the country, the National Teachers Institute and also from Gambia and Rwanda. The observation by NCCE’s Executive Secretary, Professor Mohammed Ibn Junaid that the ability to produce a workforce that is competently and adequately prepared to take advantages of ICT creatively in their work was of crucial importance to the attainment of Nigeria’s ambitious Vision 20:20-20, underscored the significance of adopting such a collaborative learning strategy with reputed international organizations such as COL.
Going by the enthusiasm and positive reviews of the workshop by participants there is justification for the adoption of the collaborative strategy in evolving innovative approaches to enhancing the quality of teacher education in the country, especially in the context of integrating current strategies and harnessing human and material resources from the international community for the much needed accelerated capacity building in ICT as a vital impetus for adequate and qualitative development of the nation’s education sector. Every support should therefore be given to the important task of sustaining the gains of NCCE-COL collaboration which has so far covered dissemination of Quality Assurance Toolkits for teacher education, mainstreaming of Child-Friendly Models, Principles and Methods into teacher education curricula and Improvement of English Language Teaching at JSS level using ORELT Materials.
Abdulsalam wrote from Abuja