UNESCO, others train 70 teachers on digital literacy
The Federal Ministry of Education in partnership with Wikimedia Foundation and UNESCO, have commenced digital literacy training for secondary school teachers in the FCT to increase their relevance in the 21st-century technology-driven world.
The training tagged Reading Wikipedia in the classroom, is expected to run for two months, with the aim of equipping the teachers with the right ICT tools for effective classroom teaching.
Declaring the training open in Abuja, the Minister of Education Mallam Adamu Adamu, represented by an Assistant Director in the Ministry Mr. Afomowe Olugbolahan, said digital literacy has become indispensable for every citizen to communicate, receive education or socialize.
The Minister said “As you all know, digital literacy is a foundation issue of success in today’s technology-driven world, regardless of educational goals, career pursuit, or job functions”.
“As the world and indeed Nigeria continues to grapple with growing job crisis, most Nigerians across all categories of the workforce lack the basic technological skills needed for real business application”.
“Therefore, proficiency in digital literacy is no longer an option, it is the requirements and our institutions must play a crucial role in achieving these requirements”. He said.
The lead trainer of Wikimedia Foundation Mrs. Obiangeli Ezeilo, explained that 70 teachers were selected from government secondary schools in the FCT, for the pilot face of the program, and stressed that teachers from the primary schools would also be trained.
“ The two months program is divided into two phase, the first four weeks of the training will be online, while the second four weeks will be physical exercise. Today’s training is based on Wikipedia usage, how to access information, edit content and carry out research work. “
” Wikipedia is an all-inclusive site, it helps fact check fake news, this is because every piece of information on the site has a credible source, so the idea is to train the teachers on how to effectively use the site to carry out classroom learning activities”
In their contributions, the former Secretary General Nigerian National Commission for UNESCO Mrs Florence Oguah, and the Head of Regulations, Accreditation and Enforcement Teachers Regulation Council of Nigeria Mr Okunola Abimbola, maintained that training and retraining of teachers on digital literacy remain the sure way to meet the demands of the 21st-century technology-driven world.
” As a professional teacher, you need to have all information at your fingertip, things are changing, and you must be up to date with information in other to solve classroom digital needs, if not the students would be disappointed especially when their problems are not solved because they are looking up to us as their encyclopedia”.
Representatives from Non-Governmental Association for Literacy Support Services NOGALSS Mrs. Cecilia Powa and FCT Education Resource Center Hajia Nasmat Abdullahi, affirmed that acquiring digital skills was vital to the economic development of the nation, and promised to continue to Support government efforts, towards meeting the 95% literacy level in the country by 2030.
Reporting by Julian Osamoto, editing by Daniel Adejo