The North-East Development Commission (NEDC) has commenced training of 100,000 teachers and school administrators for effective and efficient service delivery, which aimed to address the shortage of manpower in the region devastated by the activities of a decade-long insurgency.

Business Day reports that the education sector was severely impacted by conflict, where nearly 2,400 teachers were killed and unspecified numbers were wounded, as well as more than three thousand classrooms were destroyed in 15 years of insurgency in the northeast region. 

Mohammed Alkali, Managing Director NEDC, was speaking during a two-day Train the Trainers workshop for consultants on the training of teachers on school management and STEM ) from the states of the northeast region organised by the commission in Maiduguri on Tuesday.

Alkali said the “Train the Trainers” cut across Borno, Yobe, Adamawa, Gombe, Taraba, and Bauchi states, respectively. It targets all the teachers in secondary schools across 18 senatorial districts of the northeast geo-political zone of the country.

Alkali, represented by Khalifa Lawan, Head of Scholarship, Training and Capacity Building NEDC, said that at the beginning of the year, the commission received directives from the federal government that 100,000 teachers should be trained in the Northeast to enhance and support the education sector.

He said, ‘We have an overall target, which is 100,000 teachers in the northeast, but this figure is split into phases; the one we are doing now is training the trainers. 

“The overall objectives are to build the capacity of teachers, build the capacity of methodology and expect the teacher to be better equipped so that we have quality students and a better future for the region.

He maintained that the commission has multiple activities not only to help the teachers but the entire people of the region.

“This phase is targeting the training of 3,600 teachers in the 18 senatorial districts of the northeast, so we are training 200 teachers in each of the senatorial districts. In this training, we are expected to have four to five phases, but for teacher upgrades, we have collaboration with the National Institute of Teachers, which has two phases; we are going to have 12,000 in each phase. 

Speaking from a teacher’s perspective, he said, “Due to the Boko Haram conflict, so many teachers are lacking; many left the service, some of them are being killed, some are traumatised and others affected in many ways. We also have psycho-social training and psycho-social support to help teachers to regain their confidence and be productive.” Lawan noted.

Alice Musa, a university don, explained that training the trainers has two modules which help to teach basic science, technology, agricultural engineering and mathematics (STEMA) and others, including classroom management, school management and guidance and counselling.

Alice stressed that the training focuses on two cardinals, including human capital development and repositioning of the education sector of the region. 

She noted, “There is a brief training we are giving to consultants to go and train teachers on how to teach basic science and develop the capacity building of teachers. Basically, the people we have here are consultants, and we expect them to go back to their states and replicate the training for teachers who are in secondary schools. We want our consultants to be conversant with the methods and training. This aimed to improve the performance of teachers and learners in public schools across the region.