By; MKPUMA ENYINNA, Abakaliki
In a bid to catch children young and facilitate their learning method, education officers in Ebonyi State have expressed satisfaction over the just concluded training workshop on “Regio–Emilia Teaching Approach” which is one of the best in teaching children in preschool years.
The five days (8th—12th August) training workshop for support officers which took place in Abakaliki, the capital, was organized by Ebonyi State Universal Basic Education Board in collaboration with UNICEF to train them on the use of “Regio–Emilia Teaching Approach”in early child development.
One of the support officers, Mr. John Onah from Izzi Local Education Authority, expressed satisfaction over the workshop because it has really exposed them to a new teaching approach that will help preschool children to learn faster with little supervision from the teacher.He also assured of full implementation at the grassroot level.
Also speaking, one of the resource persons, Mrs. Nwasum Christiana when asked about the relevance of the new approach, said, “The new teaching approach is very relevant because it is child centered. It is one of the best approach because it uses critical thinking.The teacher is just there to guide they children while they do it themselves”, she said.
Furthermore, the officer in charge of UNICEF assisted programmes in Ebonyi State Universal Basic Education Board, Dr. Christogunus Nweke explained that the “Regio–Emilia Teaching Approach ” is a new approach within Nigeria educational context, though it is not quite new, but it is relatively new.
He noted that the method is adaptable to teaching of children in early child care centres ie the preschool,and very useful in teaching children because it is child centered, activity based, and is aimed at preparing children into basic schools saying that the teaching approach originated in Italy, in 1945.
Responding, the UNICEF Education Specialist in charge of Enugu office, Dr.Agatha Nzeribe stated that “Regio–Emilia Approach is a child Centered approach to the early years of learning because the teacher is just a facilitator who sets up the learning environment depending on what is to be taught for children to explore and learn.
Dr. Nzeribe also noted that the whole of Ebonyi State has been covered but more attention is basically given to some focused local government areas that are educationally at risk because they have no access to quality education and requires much input to be made in order to be academically sound and meet up with others.
“Usually,what we have in our schools are teacher Centered approaches where learning is based on what they teacher does, but the “Regio–Emilia Approach” is based on what the children does.
“In this approach, they teacher is just a facilitator who sets up the learning environment depending on what is to be taught for children to explore and learn.
“Today, we are basically on focused local government areas,ie those that are educationally at risk,where children do not have access to quality education, which requires that much input should be made to ensure that children learn and teachers.
She further added that UNICEF comes in for capacity building of the teachers and have built the capacity of every teacher in the early childhood centres and now on focused local government areas as well.
“Beyond the teachers, this particular training is to bring the capacities of the school supervisory officers because when you bring new approach, the people who will monitor and ensure compliance and also need to be conversant with what is required so that when they go back to schools, they will monitor their activities and report back.”
