Follow Us on Google
Olanrewaju Lawal, Birnin Kebbi
The Kebbi State government has deployed over 140 monitoring officers to 956 primary schools across the 21 local government areas of the state to evaluate performances of over 1,452 trained Primary One teachers.
The teachers to be monitored were trained under Better Education Service Delivery for All (BESDA) to ensure the improvement of pupils of Primary One under the guide of Reading and Numeracy Activities (RANA) scheme and their enrollment in the state.
Daily Sun gathered that 120 mentors and coaches, as well as BESDA officers in all the 21 LGAs of the state, were converged at Birnin Kebbi for the meeting of LGEA Desk Officers and RANA coaches/mentors on the distribution of pupils books and teachers’ guides.
While dispatching the officers, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education, Hajiya Rafaatu Hammani, explained that the essence of the exercise was to assess the literacy levels and retention of pupils’ enrollment in the Primary schools.
According to her, “we invited these coaches and mentors here because they are the ones who will go round to evaluate the effects of the training we gave these Primary One teachers in the RANA programme. Their responsibilities are to see if they are following the syllabus. Are they doing it correctly? If they are doing it right, they will encourage them to do more.
“This is to ensure that RANA is going on the way it should be. We have distributed books to all the Primary One pupils that these trained Primary One teachers are teaching. So we want them to go round to see if all these pupils have the RANA books. And if the teachers are teaching exactly what they are supposed to teach by following the syllabus the way it should be.
“Where the teacher is deficient, they will assist and help the teacher, guide him or her on the aspect in which such a teacher is not doing well.
“So the whole essence of this exercise is to remind ourselves our roles as the people who will not only bring back children to schools but, at the same time, make sure we retain them until they complete their schooling and to make sure we [give] them quality education.”
The Permanent Secretary recalled that one of the major problem facing the education sector is a lack of constant monitoring, stressing that with the deployment of the monitors and coaches, there will be an improvement in the literacy standard in the schools so that quality education can be achieved.
Earlier, BESDA Desk Officer Mallam Hassan Umar disclosed that the programme was designed to improve literacy, enrollment of children in schools and the modalities in ensuring education objectives were achieved.
He added that the World Bank has promised Kebbi State about one million dollars if the literacy level in the state improved by two per cent through the adoption of the RANA programme.
