The training titled UNESCO –P&G Project on Empowering Women and Girls in Literacy Through the use of ICT had in presence 100 teachers drawn from schools in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) on the use of Information Communication Technology (ICT).
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reported that the training was done in partnership with two private firms-Procter and Gamble and Always.
Mr Beniot Sossou, Director, UNESCO Regional Office, Abuja, in his address, said that UNESCO was seeking innovation and taking advantage of an ICT-driven world to promote education and eradicating illiteracy.
Also representing Diawara Rokhaya, UNESCO Education Specialist to West Africa, Sossou said UNESCO sought to empower women and girls through ICT.
“It is in continuation with our partnership for our UNESCO-Always Project on Empowerment of Girls and Women in Literacy and Skills Development though the use of ICT.
We are here today to provide our partners in FCT, with teaching and learning materials; in addition to the earlier 200 laptops provided so as to enhance the teaching and learning process of the project’s target groups.
“The workshop is to let you know that the long awaited ICT component of teaching and learning in the targeted subjects have been finally completed by UNESCO in partnership with FCT Universal Basic Education Board and the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).
We have laid a solid foundation of e-learning in the core subject areas in which the project has intervened and we are now ready to give you a short orientation on how it will work,’’ he said.
He listed the materials that would be distributed as 7,500 2B exercise book for 15, non-formal education learners in Rivers and FCT.
Others are 7,000 2D exercise book for 15,000 formal education earners in the two states, 100 e-learning teachers’ guide books and teachers’ attendance registers.
Also distributed were configured e-learning lesson contents in Basic Science Technology, Mathematics and English.
More so, UNESCO Project Coordinator, Hajiya Safiya Mohammed, assert that the project is targeted both non-formal education and students from the formal education sector.
“The teachers you are seeing here today are those who teach Junior Secondary School students from the formal education sector.
These target groups are those we have targeted to benefit from e-learning technology in special subject areas that girls normally fail and drop out most of the times.So, to prevent this dropping out, UNESCO with government as well as NAN from the media side, partner to present e-lessons in Basic Science and Technology, Mathematics and English.
With the recent review of Nigeria’s education curriculum, Basic Science Technology now has four subjects—Basic Science, Basic Technology, Physical and Health Technology and ICT,’’ she disclosed.
Hajiya Safiya further said thatr, the project makes it easy for learners as they learn with their mobile devices; most especially for students, in their mobile phones as it would enable students to take their lessons anywhere they were and the teachers with their guide book through face to face contact would assess and correct the students.
Concerning the non-formal aspect of the project, adult women who were stark literate or those who had dropped out of school before they acquired the basic literacy were targeted.
“We have signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the government and it will provide the students with the mobile devices. At the moment, this project is in two states—Rivers and FCT. This is just to lay the foundation, and then we scale up.
Mr Abdulfatai Janaidu, a participant and teacher at JSS, Sabo Gari, Gwagwalada, told NAN that the project was worthwhile, adding that any serious student would benefit from it. (NAN)
