By Gabriel Ewepu – Abuja

Two reputable organizations, Skills Outside School Foundation in partnership with Women & Youth Initiative for Moral Awareness, WAYMA, have partnered to build capacity of 34 teachers on Self-management Skills, My Career, My Education Skills, Communication & Literacy Skills, Teamwork, Critical Thinking & Problem Solving Skills, Leadership & Citizenship Development Skills, Entrepreneur- Developing your Business skills, Vocational Skills and Efficient Teaching Ethics in Kebbi State.

This was contained in a statement issued by the organizations, where they explained that the capacity building was basically for 24 teachers and 10 guidance and counseling personnel, and was to boost the teachers’ capacity and cascade it the students to achieve high academic performance and self-reliance.

According to the Bridge Program Officer, Charles Jang, the training of teachers and cascading same to students will ensure that the students have a way and guide within the school to become self-reliant, he said.

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Earlier, the Skills Outside School Foundation’s Board Chair, Halima Ibrahim-Abba, said that the annual training was aimed at improving teacher/trainers’ capacity on efficient teaching ethics and professionalism in the teaching profession.

Halima Abba said: “This is in addition to effectively deploying the SOSF bridge skills and career club in 12 government secondary schools across Birnin Kebbi and Jega Local Government Areas.

“This will be a very helpful training for all stakeholders, she added.

“In a follow up discussion, she explained that the SOSF Bridge programme exposes youths in secondary schools through workshops deployed by trained school teachers/trainers and opportunities through partners and mentors to build them on; Life Skills​, Career Awareness and Skills Development​, Academic Skills, Technical, Vocational and Enterprise Skills​.”

According to her, the decision to train the teachers was borne out of the high level of unemployment and economic issues in the country.

And disclosed that the foundation passionately put resources together to help address the issues of unemployment and employability holistically, by making sure the people get the right education and resources that would enable them become entrepreneurs of their dreams or being employed by others.

“We have been working with volunteer trainers over the last seven to eight years, and we have realized that the focus should also largely be on teachers, because they are trained to deliver curriculums.

“They are the ones who have the understanding on how to manage classrooms, and they see what the young people are going through.

“They are the type of people who have the capability to really understand some of the difficulties in our society today.

“We are thereby ensuring that when they are trained, they will, in turn, step down the training to students either through their subjects or clubs that we set up,” she added.

However, she (Halima Ibrahim-Abba) made it known and added that the Foundation had been working in Federql Capital Territory, FCT,  and 15 other States in the country over the years, and that the Foundation concentrates more on the North-West zone of the country, because of the challenges in that part of the country.

Meanwhile, explaining why  Kebbi State was selected as the start-off State was reason being that it has the highest rate of out-of-school children in the country.

“Kebbi is an interesting State to start with given the fact that it has the highest rate of out-of-school children in Nigeria, among other things.

“That discrepancy is what puts us here in addition to the wonderful support we have from our partners in the State”, she said.

Speaking on behalf of the participants, Ifeanyi Nwemeh, from the Haliru Abdu Secondary School, Jega, said that among several things learned, the training had equipped them on soap-making, and interpretation of words, among others.

“We are going to do combined job to cascade the training to the students for the development of our students and the State”,  Nwemeh said.

However, after appreciating effort and commitment of the organisations for the knowledge and skills imparted, appealed that the State government should ensure solid sustainability plan of the programme for teachers and students as they become self-reliant and entrepreneurs.

Vanguard News Nigeria