AT the beginning, it sounded like the antics of a politician, or, as some would say, a familiar rhetoric. But after about 10 minutes, primary school teachers, who had filled the Rivers State University of Science and Technology (RSUST) amphitheatre to capacity at the weekend were, indeed, taken in by the glorification of the teaching profession, as rendered by a politician.The occasion was the National Flag Off of this year's Teachers' Professional Development Training and the politician on the podium was the Deputy Governor of Rivers State, Mr. Tele Ikuru.Sounding like an orator, Ikuru declared that the country would continue to grope in the dark, until it takes good care of its teachers because of the strategic position they occupy. 'When a child is born,' he affirmed, 'that child is like a blank sheet of paper. What is written on that sheet of paper will determine what that child becomes in the future. And the first sets of people a child interacts with are you, the teachers. So, when your faces are up, this nation goes up, but when your faces are down, the nation goes down.'To Ikuru, an engineer, while improved infrastructure and provision of instructional materials were desirable, nothing meaningful would be achieved if the teachers are neglected.Ikuru demonstrated his logic by revealing what transpired during the early days of the administration of his boss, Governor Rotimi Amaechi.He said, 'one of the things the government of Amaechi did when we first came on board, was to ask ourselves questions. Why did we have militants amongst us' In the course of our analysis, part of the things we came up with was that, there were children, who were in school, or who were purportedly in school at a particular time in our history, but somehow, they did not learn what they were supposed to learn. They did not go through school the way they were they were supposed to do, and in some cases, they never even had the opportunity.'These were the same set of people, born between 1985 and 1995, and who by 2005 constituted problems in this society. And unless we take the foundation very, very seriously as a society, we would have failed.'The deputy governor also observed that the same principle applies to the Boko Haram imbroglio in the northern region. He was of the opinion that the majority of those carrying out nefarious activities in the name of Boko Haram, were those who did not have the opportunity of having good education as little children. He stated that having realised the importance of education, the Rivers State government spends 26 per cent of its yearly budget on its education sector..Executive Secretary of the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), Dr. Ahmed Modibbo Mohammed, explained that the Federal Government, in its bid to enhance the quality of education, set aside 10 per cent of the two per cent FGN/EBE Intervention Fund, specifically for Teacher Capacity Development.'No doubt,' he affirmed, 'the provision of infrastructure and instructional materials alone cannot guarantee acquisition of quality education. The availability of teachers, their continuous training and retraining would have to be undertaken vigorously to complement the input in order to come up with quality output.' .And to continually improve the system and ensure value for money, Mohammed said UBEC has adopted some strategies. One of them is the commission's identification of seven areas of training needs, which led to the development of unified training manuals that are being used for capacity training across the states.'Similarly, guidelines for the conduct of the training have been prepared and forwarded to the SUBEBs (State Universal Basic Education Boards) for the successful conduct of the trainings. We count on the SUBEBs to adhere strictly to these guidelines, which are intended to assist the effective and successful implementation of the workshops,' Mohammed said.The Executive Secretary also informed his audience that SUBEBs were also directed by UBEC to prepare and submit Action Plans, detailing areas of training, which were subsequently analysed and approved for implementation, in conformity with UBEC's guidelines.Mohammed continued: 'series of monitoring strategies have also been put in place at the national level in a bid to ensure that all trainings are conducted in conformity with the approved Action Plans and the guidelines. As chief executives of the boards, chairmen are expected to carefully and diligently monitor all training activities to ensure quality delivery by the training institutions they have selected.'Minister of State for Education, Mr. Ezenwo Wike revealed that in 2009, the sum of N5.92 billion was expended in training 175, 767 basic education teachers and managers across the country.'Similarly, N4.55 billion was spent to train 153, 920 basic education teachers and managers last year. 'For 2011, an estimated 185,000 teachers and education managers are expected to be trained with the sum of N5, 550, 000, 000. This calls for seriousness, accountability and transparency in order to have value for funds expended,' Wike declared.The minister of State also implored the SUBEBs to ensure that the institutions selected for the trainings have knowledgeable and experienced staff as Resource Persons. He declared, 'it should be noted that quality will not be compromised and sub-standard performance will attract necessary sanctions to safeguard future occurrence.
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