By Bashir Adefaka

The Charles Bebeye Ndiomu Foundation was at its usual best carrying out its social responsibility, when it took the second edition of its ‘Train the Trainer Initiative’ to Osun State where, with what many participants had described as trainer-skill of the training technical consultant, Axiom Learning Solutions Limited. It staged, for selected number of teachers from across Osun State, a two-day extensive training programme in classroom management and activity oriented lessons in core subjects.

At the closing ceremony of the training programme, held in Ataoja High School of Science, Abere, Osogbo, Osun State, the foundation, according to Managing Director of Vetiva and its Trustees Manager, Ms Ifeoma Udom, was said to have thought Osun fit to benefit in this year’s edition of the annual ‘Train the Trainer Initiative’ with intent to spread the benefits to a generality of Nigerians having held the first edition in Bayelsa State.

Managing Partner of Axiom Learning Solutions Limited, Mr. Ani Charles Bassey-Eyo, who said his organisation is a learning and development company working with public, private and third sector organisations in ensuring effective learning and development solutions, was happy the Osogbo teachers training event was a success.

He said, “We worked with the state ministry of education and SUBEB and we asked for teachers that will not retire in the next five or ten years because we wanted to ensure that we don’t just give skills and those skills are leaving the state teaching service.”

Osun State Deputy Governor, Otunba Titilayo Laoye-Tomori, represented by the Permanent Secretary Ministry of Education, Mr. Lawrence Oyeniran and Chairman of the state Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB), Mr. Felix Awofisayo were on ground to appreciate the good gesture made by the Charles Bebeye Ndiomu Foundation.  They were particularly appreciative of the training expertise displayed by Axiom’s facilitators and promised to continue from where the training stopped.

Essentially, the Deputy Governor said investing in education has always been at the top of the list of Governor Aregbesola’s administration “hence the partnership with the Charles Bebeye Ndiomu Foundation to assist in retraining of the teachers to increase student performance and decrease teacher anxiety.”

Vetiva’s boss, Ifeoma Udom, in her address on behalf of the foundation, said, “We have set for ourselves a mission to promote the quality of education in various communities across Nigeria and to provide accessibility to standard education by desiring youths through the provision of educational infrastructure, scholarship schemes and teachers’ training programmes.

It is in line with this objective that we commenced the Train the Trainer Initiative which was first introduced in 2014 in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, where the Foundation in conjunction with the Bayelsa State Universal Basic Education Board successfully organised a two-day training of secondary school teachers across the state.  This second edition of the programme, we are very pleased to observe, has been warmly received by your esteemed state.

Participants have been successfully trained on activity oriented lessons on the components of effective lesson delivery in core subject areas.  It is our understanding that the participants have maximally benefited from this two-day exercise and the feedback is that they are eager to go back to their respective schools and put into practice the knowledge that they have gained here,” she said.

Participants, who spoke with Vanguard during the closing ceremony included, Mrs Oluwatoyin Omidiran of Unity High School, Osogbo and Mr. Emitoma Hussein of School of Science, Iragbiji, both in Osun State. Omidiran said, “I must confess to you that I have learned a lot for the two days we have been taken through this training.

If you look at the theme, ‘classroom management and activity oriented lessons in core subjects,’ you would agree with me that the training succeeded in empowering me in practically impacting quality knowledge to the students without stress.  I teach agricultural science and I learned that students understand quickly what they can lay their hands upon and easily remember it when exam comes.

On classroom management I learned that when students are involved in setting the rules for the classroom, such rules work more effectively than when those rules are forced on them.” Emitoma, who headed the mathematics group discussion during the training, shared his experience, “I learned team, activity based lesson that is not centred on just talking but also being practical.

The training makes me feel like students are here present with us and it has created in me a lot of innovations in teaching.  This new teaching skill that they have given to us will definitely lessen the burden of teaching and the stress of learning,” he said. Generally, the over 40 participants poured encomiums on Axiom’s provided facilitators for what some of them described as effective skill in truly training the trainer to understanding.