As teachers all over the universe celebrated this year’s World Teachers’ Day on Monday, Nigerian teachers have been urged to embrace technology if they are to remain relevant in the profession.
Mrs. Folasade Edefisayo, the Lagos State Commissioner for Education, who gave the advice during the event held at the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) Pavilion in Ikeja, stressed that the COVID-19 pandemic has taught that everything about teaching and learning does not start and end in the classrooms.
Noting the theme of this year’s event, ‘Leading In Crisis, Re-Imagining The Future’, Mrs Adefisayo stressed that at the peak on the Coronavirus lockdown, the Lagos State government embraced virtual teaching and learning programmes through which the students in the state were kept busy at home to ensure that the quality and standard of education did not fall due to the pandemic.
Mrs. Adefisayo urged the teachers to improve on their knowledge and use of technology, stressing that due to the pandemic, the world had gone digital, while teaching and learning, like every other sector, went virtual.
Stressing the need for training and retraining, Mrs. Adefisayo informed that teachers, who performed well during the lockdown, would be taking to the United States of America (USA) by Microsoft to further their training in the area of technology.
Mrs. Adefisayo said: “Let us improve on our digital skills. Microsoft is taking those teachers who performed well during the pandemic to America for more training. We have to open up to digital learning.
“Students should acquire the habit of learning on their own. Even if they are not in school, they must be busy learning. Nobody is too old to learn technology.
“Teaching is a profession. Teachers are, therefore, experts. Try and be experts in the use of technology.”
The commissioner stated that the Lagos State government had been fulfilling its obligations of paying the teachers as and when due, even during the lockdown when they were at home, even as she promised to take all the demands of the NUT to Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu.
In his address, the Lagos State chairman of the NUT, Mr. Adedoyin Adesina, commended the governor for all efforts to improve the standard of education in the state and making life better for the teachers.
Adesina called for the creation of the Office of Headmaster-General/Permanent Secretary in the primary school sub-sector as had been the case fir secondary school sector.
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He also urged the government to provide more classrooms in schools to space students according to the COVID-19 protocol, stressing that this would be in line with the UNESCO standard of one teacher to 25 students in a classroom.
Adesina called for engagement of more teachers to cover the shortfall arising from retirement of several professionals, even as he urged the government to provide more staff buses for his members.
He also urged the government to look at the plight of the retired teachers by ensuring that their pension and gratuities were paid on time, even as sought for the inclusion of more of the NUT members in the state’s health insurance scheme.
The guest speaker, Dr. Silvester Enomhen, a former Director of Education, urged the NUT leadership to reposition themselves in making the states that had not been living up to expectation to wake up from slumber, even as he commended the efforts of the Lagos State government in this regard