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From Timothy Olanrewaju, Maiduguri
About 1,000 teachers in three local governments badly affected by insurgency in Borno State have received a lifeline support through a special training that helped them to improve their skill and qualify to teach.
The programme funded by European Union, was organized by Plan International Nigeria, a humanitarian organisation in collaboration with Borno State Government and other partners to help teachers in local areas scale up their professional competency.
The lifeline now offered a second chance to 761 teachers across the three LGAs. These teachers who could not pass their national Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN) exam initially for various reasons, have scaled the hurdles, and now inducted and certified by the council.
Head of Humanitarian Programme of Plan International Nigeria, Dr Emmanuel Nuhu in an interview with Daily Sun in Maiduguri during the induction of the second batch of 359 successful teachers, explained that the project is implemented in Damboa, Kala Balge and Mobbar local government areas, which have suffered many insurgent attacks since 2014.
“We identified those who are unable to pass the TRCN exams. So Plan International in conjunction with TRCN mentored these teachers through special programme, to pass the professional examination,” Nuhu disclosed.
He said the programme covers both computer literacy and TRCN curriculum, which prepare the teachers well for the exam. Nuhu said the implementing partners; Unique Care and Support Foundation (CASFOD), which has been engaged in humanitarian support in the state, handled the three weeks of intensive training for the selected teachers.
One of the beneficiaries, Malam Baba Malam who teaches at New Junior Day Secondary School told Daily Sun, he finally passed the certification exam after three failed attempts.
“The reason for my failure was due to my lack of computer literacy and poor understanding of the curriculum. The programme had taken care of that and this will help me teach better,” he declared.
Other beneficiaries, Mrs. Malhafas Shall and Ishaiku Damboa said the training has improved their understanding and skills to teach and impact knowledge on their students.
A 2021 Literacy and Numeracy Competence Test for Local Education Authority teachers revealed that 7,975 primary School teachers in the state were not competent but trainable. The figure represents 46.3 percent of the total 17,229 primary school teachers screened across 27 LGAs.
The teaching audits conducted by Borno government also showed that a total of 5,439 were qualified/competent to teach.
There are also 2,389 teachers teaching without any formal qualification.
Experts identified incessant insurgents’ attacks on schools and teachers, non-functioning of some schools in volatile communities as causes of short teachers supply and in some cases, poor performance.
