UNICEF Trains 18,000 Teachers In North-east

About 18,000 unqualified teachers in the Northeast have undergone training through the Global Partnership on Education (GPE) Accelerated Fund intervention project beginning from 2021.

Phuong Nguyen, UNICEF’s chief of Maiduguri Field Office,  who disclosed this at a dialogue with newsmen on Wednesday in Maiduguri, said the 12-month training is an initiative of the Nigerian government through the Federal Ministry of Education, the National Teachers Institute (NTI) and the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN).

She said the training was also supported by UNICEF which was geared at encouraging unqualified teachers to study and pass the TRCN’s qualifying examination.

Nguyen said the teachers were inducted and licensed in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe States, adding that more than 500,000 children had also been provided with learning materials.

The capacity of 438 education officials had been strengthened on education-in-emergency leadership, and result-based planning and budgeting, Nguyen also said.

“The challenges of out-of-school children and the learning crises in the education sector remain issues that UNICEF and stakeholders are working to address.

“This is to ensure that every child has the opportunity that education offers and be equipped with skills to survive and contribute positively to the society.

“One major accomplishment is the teachers training programme of the GPE’s Accelerated Funding (AF) project,’’ she said.

Nguyen assured that with the training of the teachers, at least one million girls and boys would benefit as the newly certified teachers returned to their classrooms equipped with modern and effective teaching methods.

The modern teaching methods include skills to provide gender-sensitive and psychosocial support to learners, she explained.