Australian NGO Partners Abia to Update Teachers’

Emmanuel Ugwu in Umuahia

Primary school teachers in Abia State were afforded the opportunity to update their knowledge during the recently concluded training programme conducted by experts from Australia. The four-day programme, which was packaged by Precious Kids Education Empowerment (PKEE), a non-governmental organisation based in Australia, attracted teachers from the three senatorial zones of the state.

The President of PKEE, Mrs. Vivian Peters, told journalists in Umuahia that the NGO has made it a point of duty to retrain primary school teachers in the state, upgrade their skills and keep them alert on the security of children under their care.

“We are very concerned about the security of the kids,” she said, adding that the teachers were taken through all the necessary areas that they would require to protect children while in schools. She said the training was tailored to the education needs of Abia State and anchored on five subjects: classroom management, teacher-student relationship, first aid and security alert, adding that the inclusion of security alert in the training package was particularly relevant and timely given the rising wave of insecurity actress the country. According to Peters, a total of 120 teachers including the education secretaries “carefully selected” from the three senatorial zones were trained at a selected centre in each of the zones.

A member of the team of education experts from Australia, Alnoor Dawood, said they use interactive methodology for the training “so that we can instruct people how to teach students in a more interesting, engaging ways so that the students can learn better.” Another member of the team, Sahera Sumar, said the team used a lot of experiential methodology, which involved putting teachers through the experiences that they can create for the students themselves. In his remarks, the Chairman of the State Universal Basic Education Board (ASUBEB), Mr. Kelechukwu Nwosu, said the training marked “a historic day in the life of Abia children where the governor has brought the best to give knowledge and quality assurance in the classrooms. This is going to be the beginning of a new era of qualitative learning in the classrooms