Balarabe Abdullahi Kiru
Connected Learning For STEM (CL4STEM) an International Development Project has completed arrangements to train over 20 Science and Mathematics Teachers in Kano.
The Project funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada was aimed at building the capacity of Higher/Secondary Schools Teachers in Science and Technical Education for fostering higher thinking with inclusion and equity in their class rooms in 3 selected countries of Nigeria, Tanzania and Bhutan with India as technical consultant.
Briefing the State Commissioner of Education Umar Haruna Doguwa on the project its team leader in Nigeria Professor Musa Dickson from I.B.B University, Lappai, Niger State said when the first phase of the project was implemented in Kano in 2021, 20 Science and Mathematics Teachers received intensive training on learning and teaching professiion.
Prof. Musa disclosed that the project is now in its second phase and Kano was chosen among the first beneficiaries where another set of 20 Science and Mathematics Teachers are to receive professional training on teaching.
” We are now on the second phase of the project and decided to come back to the ministry to intimate you with what we have done and ask for your additional support in that direction.
” We need your support because we are using your teachers that we are going to train on higher undertaking and other things that will improve the teaching and learning of Science and Mathematics in Kano State ” Musa stated.
He said the project has 3 partners in Nigeria which include I.B.B University, Bayero University and Kaduna State University and the team already went round to the affected Universities and implemented the project.
According to him, for any international development project to succeed, the most important thing needed is sustainability, stressing that… ” there aim is for Kano State Government to pull the programme so that even at the end of its duration, we know that this Government will be ready to continue from where we stopped ”
He maintained that the project supposed to end last year 2023 but due to the achievements recorded in shifting from traditional classrooms practices to innovative instructional and assessment practices, its funding was extended to this year .
The project research officer Professor Mustapha M. Tajuddeen highlighted the meeting points with ministry which include CL4STEM project, piloting and impacts, CL4STEM phase and implementation as well as the expectations of the role of the ministry toward CL4STEM mainstreaming and scaling.
Responding, the State Commissioner of Education Alhaji Umar Haruna Doguwa thanked the team for extending their hands of friendship towards developing the state education sector.
Umar Doguwa explained that education had suffered for quite along period in the state and that made it possible for the present administration to look for more Development Partners that would complement its effort of reviving the sector.
” When we came in, we are faced with very serious and challenging problems ranging from teachers training, infrastructures and learning materials. We met more than 5.2 million students and out of this number, 4.5 million are sitting on the floor.
” We met a school of 6000 population with out a toilet and discovered almost 400 schools in the northern zone with only one teacher each. Out of the 72 boarding schools left by Governor Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso in 2015, we came to find out that 42 of them were closed down ” the Commissioner lamented.
He further assured of the ministry’s commitment to collaborate with project team to achieve sustainable progress of the education sector especially engineering, mathematics and science professiion.
