By; MOHAMMED KAWU, Bauchi
Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), has assured that Korean teachers would soon be in Nigeria to train teachers to get them understand how to manipulate ICT gadgets in Nigerian Smart and Special schools in the six geo-political zones of the country.
The Commission’s Executive Secretary, Dr. Hamid Bobboyi who dropped this hint, said Korea is also to establish teaching laboratories and studios in those particular schools to develop multi-media resources for teaching that could help teachers in technologies acquisition.
He was speaking in Bauchi Wednesday while inspecting the progress of work at the North East Zonal Smart School where he expressed delight with the work, saying however “But the challenges are there and I think with the commitment of stakeholders in Bauchi state we are very sure to overcome them”.
“What I have come to see is the progress of the work, and we are very glad His Excellency the Governor, Senator Bala Mohammed has promised to construct the linkage road to the school, and we thank him immensely for volunteering to do that. At the same time, we need to emphasize that the equipment would soon be there for the training of teachers”.
Dr. Bobboyi envisioned Nigeria having continuous audit on basic education where data could be offload either on daily, weekly or quarterly basis on what is going on in every class in Nigerian school, however regretted that data flows very slowly in Nigeria as the country is yet to achieve that feat ever since he hatched this plan in 2018.
“We hope that we would leverage on information technology on the digital platform that are in the smart schools to be able to have our schools key in on very regular basis generating data for use in learning our education system and in accessing and monitoring our progress and addressing the challenges that arise from them”.
Bobboyi described the establishment of the Smart School as a necessity for Nigerian education system leverage on information technology and the digital platform that are there in teaching and learning, with the schools are geared towards providing example of what the digital learning is all about.
He explained that with such classrooms and laboratories the Nigerian kids would become familiar in abundant with the technology where every child would be having a tablet that can be used in teaching and access to internet connectivity, especially when power is stable in all parts of the country.
Bobboyi thanked Governor Bala Mohammed and the entire education sector in Bauchi state for supporting the National Personnel Audit (NPA) currently going on, saying “We were very happy with what we have seen and happy at the speed challenges were being addressed, hoping that Bauchi will soon be one of those states with 100% completion”.
The Executive Secretary while expressing confidence that proper audit could be achieved with the support of educational administrators in the states such as in Bauchi, said “I’m very much impressed by the commitment of commissioner of education in the state to help putting in place a kind of system that would obviate of me having to come every three years to be looking about the basic education”.
Dr. Bobboyi while monitoring National Personnel Audit in some primary and junior secondary schools in Bauchi state, said the rationale behind the exercise is to collect data on school enrollment, personal, and infrastructure for effective service delivery, and to generate data for effective educational planning.
The UBEC Secretary during the monitoring visited Sa’adu Zungur Primary and Junior Secondary school, Kobi Primary School, Alfurqan International Academy, Smart school along Gombe Road, as well as the State Ministry of Education.
