The Sustainable Education and Enterprise Development (SEED) Foundation and the Lagos State Government have teamed up to train and supply one million teachers with cutting-edge teaching methods.
This will be one of the steps taken to address the drop in student performance brought on by ineffective teaching methods.
The Special Adviser to Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu on Education, Barrister Tokunbo Wahab, opened the training session for teachers at the Lagos State University of Education (LASUED), stating that the program was created to provide participants with relevant skills that will enhance their competency and professionalism to provide quality instruction.
The SEED program is one of the strategies the State’s administration, led by Governor Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu, uses to carry out the objectives outlined in the T.H.E.M.E.S. Development Agenda’s Education and Technology Pillar.
The program also seeks to increase the capacity of teachers by exposing them to a variety of online courses and foreign teaching techniques that will help them stay current with their knowledge and hone their skills so they can perform better and instruct students effectively in the classroom.
The Special Adviser clarified the program’s objective, saying:
“The State Government noted that the collaboration with FEED Foundation would result in the desired outcome by assisting State institutions to produce teachers who are not only qualified for the position but also have the profession’s best interests at heart.”
He also promised that the State Government would continue to work on developing the incentives and encouraging environment required to make teaching one of the State’s most lucrative careers.
Professor Bilkis Lafiaji-Okunneye, vice chancellor of LASUED, noted in her remarks that the State Government/SEED collaboration is one of the current administration’s strategies to professionalize teaching in order to improve teacher performance.
Olanrewju Oniyitan, executive director of the SEED Care and Support Foundation, provided the following explanation regarding the need to increase teachers’ capacity:
There was a need to increase the capacity of teachers in training so that they could update their knowledge because of the enormous obstacles to high-quality education in Nigeria.
No matter how supportive the environment is for learning, having access to competent and qualified teachers is essential to achieving sustainable growth in education. Governments at all levels are urged to give teachers’ training and re-training top priority as a necessary condition for improvement.
