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Education Today
Can you tell us some of the landmark achievements of the NTI under your watch? Well, talking about the achievements of the NTI, I think the time we have now will not allow us to be able to mention all those achievements. But one important thing I have to say is that when we came on board a few years ago, we tried our best to transform and reposition the institute and we have at least succeeded to a certain extent, in repositioning and transforming the institute such that we have introduced new programmes and strengthened the quality of the programmes we met on ground. We have introduced the Bachelor’s degree programme. And, we are proud that we have added to the quality of training of teachers in the country through the various transformations and repositioning that are taking place at the institute and through the introduction of other programmes and activities and also by enhancing and improving the quality of the programmes that we met on ground. We have done a lot. I also think we have imparted the teachers positively and we hope to continue to do our best within the period that we are going to be on board. How can the current administration leverage on the NTI’s national reach and capacity to galvanise change through quality education delivery? Yes, like I have said, we have done our best since we came on board. Even before the change regime that we are in, I think we had started at the NTI much earlier and what we are doing now is consolidating the change agenda that we brought in when we came in newly in the institute. And of course, like I have said, we have two major programmes that are conducted by the institute. These are upgrading and capacity building programmes. Either of the two programmes has brought in new activities, which we keep improving on. We are changing our game plans such that the training that we are conducting for teachers is now on all over the country. And again, we have made a lot of tracer studies. And, through our tracer studies, we have seen that a lot of impact has been made in the quality of teachers that we have in the country and also in the way in which our teaching is being done across all the states of Nigeria. We are doing a lot. Like I said, time will not permit me to bring out one by one, the issues we have brought in, and the changes we have made. I think one thing I have to mention is that we have brought in what we call, the “5-Point Targets” which we actually use to improve on what we are doing. Number one, is what we call strengthening quality assurance programme of the institute, through which we ensure that everything that is being done has quality. There is quality in what we have done, and in what we are doing. And, then, many experts and professionals ensure that our training programmes are conducted in the contexts of best standards and quality. We have succeeded a lot in these regards. The quality of the manuals we have produced and given to our students testifies to our insistence on quality. Then, the facilitators and lecturers that we engage to train our students meet our quality standards. We make sure we select the very best. And, if you consider the way we conduct and mark our examinations, there is quality in the entire process. All in all, we are doing better than what we met on ground. The second issue borders on enhancing and improving the quality of our programmes and activities. We have introduced new programmes in the area of upgrading. We have introduced the Bachelor’s degree programme and other programmes. Again, even the NCE programme that we met on ground, we have tried as much as possible to see to the possibility of introducing additional courses at least in the NCE level. Also, the PGD in Education programme is being done with same quality assurance just like in any other programmes that we do. We have also introduced many capacity-building programmmes. The Mathematics and Science teachers programme is there and enables us to train Science and Mathematics teachers. These teachers are trained in all states of Nigeria. The trainings are conducted in batches. There is improvement in the quality of Mathematics and Science teachers across the country. If you go round the country and assess the teachers we have trained, you will certainly see changes in terms of their quality and depth of knowledge. We have also introduced information and communications technology in the conduct of our programmes. We have established computer laboratories in all the states of Nigeria though there are a few states that are left. Our plan is to establish at least one laboratory in every state of Nigeria. These laboratories will not only be open to the teachers that we have
Thursday, September 10, 2015
National Mirror www.nationalmirroronline.net
NTI should play dominant roles in sustainable development goals —DG Established in 1976 to among others, provide in-service education for teachers, using the Distance Learning System, the National Teachers’ Institute (NTI) Kaduna has attained a global reckoning, partnering international institutions, and providing a compelling model for compact, flexible, equal, and ICT-driven, open and distance learning upon which the institution was adjudged the most reputable teacher-education institution by distance learning mode. The Director General, Dr. Aminu Ladan Sherahu, spoke with MARCUS FATUNMOLE and UKAEGBU BLESSING in Abuja recently on the sidelines of an orientation programme organised for the institute’s 2015 candidates for the PGDE, BSc., and N.C.E. Excerpts: country. So we are the institution with the widest spread in the country. I do not think there is any educational institution in the country that has the kind of spread that the NTI has. And of course we are doing as much as we could. We have training programmes like the ones at this centre of the FCT. Any where you go, across the states of the country, you will meet our students having similar programmes that are taking place today. I do not think it will be easy to find an administration like the one we have at the NTI at the moment. So we are doing it as much as possible to ensure success. The last of the 5-Point Targets that I earlier mentioned is what we call adequate utilisation of the meager resources that we have at the institute. The limited resources that we have at the institute, we try to deploy them according to some stringent guidelines to ensure that due process and procedures are adhered to.
Ladan trained. But, as long as you are a teacher in the classroom, you will be able to use the facilities there. Once you can show your identity card you will be allowed to use these laboratories. These computer laboratories are equipped with modern computers - laptops and desktops. We have also provided generating sets and inverters where there is no public power supply, and the rest of that. They are functioning 24 hours in some of these states. Not that anyone has given us money, but it is through our personal contacts and efforts that we got the computers which are worth over N1 billion which we have used to establish the computer laboratories across Nigeria. A few states are remaining. We are going to establish them in due course. We are now making sure that everything about what we do in terms of running our programmes is done using the information and communications technology. Now candidates’ applications, registration, admission, and checking of results are done online. When we came on board, all of these were done manually. We have indeed embraced the use of ICT at the institute. The fourth one is what we call staff sourcing and training. We try to ensure that our staffers are adequately trained. And, we source the most experienced experts for our programmes. All the lecturers and facilitators that we employ are people of high integrity. They have a high level of expertise in their chosen fields. These are the ones we recruit and engage on both part-time and full-time basis. We also provide training for them. If you go to the institute now, we have many PhD holders that we had supported their training and those we had also sponsored their studies. There are so many of them, including the centre manager of the FCT. She just bagged her PHD recently. And there are so many of them that we had encouraged to further their studies. We also have many Masters Degrees holders and I want to tell you, many are professors all over the country. So, we make sure that we support what our workers do, whether part-time or full-time. And we make sure that we get the best that we can lay our hands on. This is working for us. If you go round now and assess the workers that are working for us, you will see that they are highly qualified people across the country. And you remember that our programmes are in every state of Nigeria. We have almost 500 centres across the
Could you tell us what the NTI’s Open and Distance Education is all about? There is the issue of lack of understanding of what the Open and Distance Education (ODE) can actually provide. The open and distance mode of education which the NTI is applying to run its own programmes is relatively a new method of education delivery which the advanced world are using to ensure that their citizens get quality education without any constraints. Education must be given to the citizens. This is the mode of education we are using and through that we have produced a great number of teachers many of whom would not have had the opportunity of receiving good education in the first place. In view of the fact that the NTI has been a stakeholder in the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) what efforts is the NTI making towards adapting some of its strategies in order to cope with the challenges of the newly revised Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations? Yes, even when the issue of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) was about to be endorsed, I think we who are, so to say, stakeholders in the management of the MDGs, were involved. We are now actually engaged in training teachers as I had rightly mentioned. I think we will try to make our point. The point is that the NTI should also be a part of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) programme because the training that was expected to be conducted through the MDGs for teachers was not enough. Training of teachers should be a continuous exercise. It is not because the MDGs are winding up and the training of teachers should stop. No, no, no! In fact if there is anything that should be sustained, it is the training of teachers under the SDGs. It should be the number one item that must be sustained. So, we made that point and it was accepted and we believe that we should be among those that will be considered actually when the SDGs take off. And it is the same way with some changes or innovations and improvements that we continue to introduce in the training for teachers. Like I rightly mentioned, training like the ones we have done should not be a one-off thing. It should not be that you trained last year and you trained the year before. No. Like I said, every teacher should have the opportunity to be trained in terms of capacity building at least three times in a year. So there should be more funding for the MDGs. The funds were not much. They were so meager such that you would realize that you will be training about four thousand across the country.