Kaduna public schools moving from analogue to digital teaching – Commissioner

The Kaduna State Government says it is repositioning the teaching service to improve the quality of teaching and learning in public primary and secondary schools in the state.
The state’s Commissioner for Education, Dr. Shehu Makarfi, made this known in Kaduna on Tuesday, when he visited teachers undergoing training on “Classroom All-inclusive Teacher Empowerment Solution (CATES).’’

News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that CATES is a digital training programme under the World Bank-supported Global Partnership for Education (GPE).
It is designed to improve the delivery of teaching in primary schools.
Makarfi said that the state was determined to transform its teaching service from analogue to digital for quality education in the state.
He said that plans had been concluded to train all public primary and secondary school teachers in the state on the adoption and utilisation of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in teaching.
He said that the government had entered into partnership with some training institutions to conduct the training, which would be concluded in the next five years.
According to him, the move is to entrench the use of ICT in the education sector with a view to ease teaching and learning and improve learning in public schools.
“We will continue to empower our teachers with requisite ICT skills to ensure that our children are ICT compliant and well educated to compete with their counterparts from anywhere in the world.
“Our goal is to improve the quality of our teachers and equip them with the necessary skills to deliver quality teaching to our children.”
Also speaking, Malam Aliyu Idris, the Director, School Inspection and Monitoring, Kaduna State Universal Basic Education Board, said that the move was to develop a breed of digital teachers for public schools.
Idris explained that 350 teachers from nine schools in nine local government areas of the state, including local government school support officers were undergoing the training.
He said that the training was designed to educate the teachers on how to use e-lesson note and e-lesson plan uploaded in tablet computers to teach in classrooms.
The director added that it was part of efforts to empower teachers with digital skills to make teaching and learning very interesting and easy.
“The table computers are encrypted with Teacher Development Module and Lesson Plan on core primary school subjects, such as Social Studies, English, Mathematics and Basic Science.
“The teacher development module particularly helps the teacher to carry out research and include local content and ideas into the pre-designed notes for each of the four subjects.
“This, we believe, will make a huge difference in the state’s effort to move teaching and learning from analogue to digital,” he said.
Some of the teachers thanked the World Bank and state government for the gesture, describing it as crucial to improving learning outcomes in public primary schools.
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One of them, Mr Nyako Yaro, said that he was particularly impressed that the computers contained all the materials they need to prepare a rich lesson note.
Similarly, Mr Sunday Amos said that the efforts would help develop their e-research skills and enable teachers to deliver quality teaching to the pupils.
Mrs. Larai Salisu, the Head Teacher, Sheik Abubakar Gumi Primary School Tudun Wada, pointed out that the measure would make teaching and learning easy and interesting.