THE training and retraining of teachers through upgrading of their qualifications, capacity`-building through workshop and seminars is a must for a nation like Nigeria to have the best in the educational sector, the Director-General of National Teachers Institute, NTI, Kaduna, Dr Aminu Ladan Sharehu has said.

He said this at the opening of a two-week 4th Cohort Cycle II Strengthening Mathematics and Science Education (SMASE) training programme for teachers from Akwa Ibom, Anambra, Benue, Imo and Yobe states holding at the NTI headquarters, Kaduna.

Dr. Sharehu said that the institute was concerned about the welfare and wellbeing of every teacher in the nation and would do all within its mandate to ensure teachers received the best available training programmes to enable them deliver the best method of classroom and out-of-classroom teaching techniques.

The institute, he revealed has so far trained 413 teachers in seven cohorts of the first cycle of the SMASE programme.

His words, “We have conducted the first cohorts with seven cycles. We are into the second cohorts with three cycles done and we are now conducting the fourth cohorts of the second cycle. We hope to continue this training until when we get the best and improve the quality of science and mathematics teachers in the country.

“The only way you can get the best out of the teachers is to continue to engage them in capacity-building and this is what NTI is doing as much as possible. But our major constraint is collaboration with the state governments. This SMASE training programme that is being conducted is in collaborations with the state governments”.

To improve on the SMASE programme, the D-G said the institute has introduced computer training into it with a fully equipped computer laboratory for the use of the trainees.