By Amos Aar
THE UNIVERSAL Basic Education Commission (UBEC) through its Digital Resource Centre (DRC), is training thirty-two (32) pioneer teachers and other personnel for the smooth take-off of the Smart School, Makurdi for this academic session.
Declaring the training open on Wednesday, UBEC Executive Secretary Hamid Bobboyi, represented by Mr Enoch Marcus, charged the participants to take the training seriously and promised that UBEC would continue to lend support for the success and growth of the school.
Earlier in a welcome address, Acting SUBEB Executive Chairman, Mr Mzaga Iorhemba, noted that government was mindful of the Education of children and that’s why Governor Hyacinth Alia has invested so much into the sector.
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The Acting Executive Chairman who congratulated the principal and his teachers for being pioneer staff of the school assured that they would lack nothing during the training.
He appreciated the facilitators for taking time to train the teachers and urged the participants to be careful and pay maximum attention to the training.
Lead Facilitator, Dr Hassan Funsho Akande, said there is a paradigm shift in the mode of teaching from the traditional to digital system and that is why UBEC has tasked them to train, the principal, head-teachers, class teachers and the ICT managers on how to handle the new system.
Dr Hassan who said there was need for them to test run the system before it fully takes off acknowledged that all the trainees cooperated with the team and were catching up with the training, assuring that the school would take off in Benue on Friday September 29.
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Mr Joel Hilejime, Desk Officer of the Smart School and Dominic Kwaghgba, who spoke on behalf of the teachers congratulated UBEC and SUBEB on the feat and assured that they would not fail the commission and and the Board after the training.
Speaking on the sidelines, Mrs Brenda Atii from the UBEC State office who was part of the team to monitor the ongoing training said, some teachers have already known how to use smart phones through the training which she said started on Monday and was being carried out in different modes including online, offline and face-to-face. She pointed out lack of electricity as their major challenge as they have been using generator throughout at the school for online lessons despite high cost of fuel.
Dr Peter Akpen, Principal of the School conducted the SUBEB Chairman and management staff of the Board round to inspect facilities at the Smart School and the chairman expressed satisfaction with the state of things.