By Hajara Leman
The Educational Endowment Fund (EEF) of the North East Development Commission (NEDC) said it was targeting 1,800 teachers of primary and junior secondary schools across the six states in the North East region for training.
Mr. David Kente, Chairman, Board of Trustees EEF of NEDC, stated this in Gombe on Monday during the opening ceremony of one-week training of 150 Basic Education Teachers.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the fund was created in 2020 specifically to address the problems and challenges of education as well as its development in the region.
NAN also reports that the training was in collaboration with Zahabih Educational Consultancy Gombe.
Represented by Mr Joshua Sagari Senior Technical Assistant to the Board, the chairman said the fund concentrates on the basic education, the primary and junior secondary schools.
“The fund is concentrating on the basic education of the North East, the syllabus and modules selected will enhance the teachers capacity with basic skills, to be able to step down to their counterparts .
“The training programme was designed to equip the teachers with the requisite skills and also tackle the problem of shortage of teachers in the region .
He appreciated the position Gombe State had taken particularly in the education by declaring a state of emergency in the sector.
Mr Zakari Kudi, Deputy Chairman, Zahabih Education Consultancy, said education in the region had been in regression even before the insurgency and had declined further following the insurgents attack.
He said statistics had revealed that over 2,295 teachers had been killed and 1,900 displaced in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe and estimated 1,500 schools destroyed since 2014.
Kudi said the training would improve the capacity of the teachers to effectively facilitate learning outcome and impact quality knowledge with innovative techniques and skills.
Declaring the training open, Gov Inuwa Yahaya of Gombe State commended NEDC and President Muhammadu Buhari for the support.
The governor who was represented by Manasseh Jatau, the Deputy Governor, said the present administration on assumption of office 2019 declared a state of emergency on education sector because it was performing below expectations.
He said all hands were on deck to address the undesirable situation met on ground ”I am happy to report that the number of out-of-school children has been reduced from above 7000,000 to less than 200,000 now.
Also speaking, Mr Dauda Batari, Gombe State Commissioner for Education, said Gov. Yahaya had passion for education as he recently approved the recruitment of over 1,000 teachers for senior secondary schools.
He also said the governor directed that teachers in primary and junior secondary schools who were qualified to teach in senior secondary schools be upgraded.
He said following his commitment in the sector, 79.5 per cent of the students that sat for the Senior Schools Certificate Examinations (SSCE) passed with five credits in English and Mathematics in 2020/2021(NAN)
