
Photo: The Permanent Secretary, Ministries of Primary and Secondary Education, Mr. Augustine Oghoro (middle), who represented the State Commissioner for Primary Education, Dr. Kingsley Ashibogwu, in a group photograph with Directors and some Primary School Heads and Local Education Secretaries during a One-Day Capacity Building Workshop in Asaba.
Delta State Commissioner for Primary Education, Dr. Kingsley Ashibogwu has reiterated the state government commitment towards strengthening the capacity of teachers in the area of curriculum innovation for effective service delivery.
Ashibogwu stated this in Asaba while declaring open a One-day capacity building workshop for Primary School Head teachers, Local Education Secretaries and Chief Inspectors of Education in Delta North Senatorial District on the theme: “Preparing Teachers for Recent Innovations in Primary Schools’ Curriculum.”
The Commissioner, who was represented at the workshop by the Permanent Secretary in charge of Ministries of Primary and Secondary Education, Mr. Augustine Oghoro, said that the education stakeholders in Delta Central and Delta South Senatorial Districts would also be trained.
He told participants that education remained the fulcrum for human capital development and a vehicle through which knowledge, skills, attitudes and values could be passed from one generation to the other for the overall development of the society.
Ashibogwu stated that the first real contact with grooming learners in a structured environment was the primary or basic school education system, stressing that as teachers and administrators there was a need for them to be equipped with the recent innovations in curriculum development.
He explained that the theme of the workshop was apt in underscoring the importance the Oborevworiadministration places on training and retraining of teachers who were in charge of molding young minds to properly fit into the state’s development.
In his lecture presentation, the lead resource person, Dr. Godwin Edozie stated that the report of a Presidential Advisory Committee on curriculum development headed by Emeritus Professor PAI Obanya highlighted fundamental dysfunctions in the educational system and curriculum development.
Dr. Edozie listed such dysfunctions to include curriculum overload and non vocationalisation of the school curriculum, proliferation of subjects and courses and dearth of official curriculum in schools and the inability of some states to enrich the curriculum.
While saying that a teacher would be better armed to teach when he or she has access to the curriculum, Dr. Edozie stated that all States of the Federation have the official curriculum.
On his part, the Head, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, Federal College of Education (Technical), Asaba, Dr. Adewunmi Ayo-Vaughan said that it was the responsibility of the teacher to develop daily lesson plan, adding that it was wrong to write down a lesson plan that could span a week or more.
Ayo-Vaughan, whose lecture topic centred on lesson plans and notes, stated that lesson notes would enable the teacher to display his mastery of the subject matter and provide the learners with content, broken down to their level of understanding.