DFID Launches £34 Million Teacher Training Project

British Department for International Development

A new education project worth N9.18 billion, funded by the British Department for International Development, is to train up to 62,000 teachers by 2019.

The £34 million Teacher Development Programme, launched on Thursday in Abuja, will focus in six states for the next six years in hopes of strengthening the states "to produce teachers who can really teach in today's reality," said Nguyen Feese, TDP national programme manager.

TDP will help states train teachers pre-service but will focus more on continued training tailored to the specific needs of teachers already in service.

"Teachers don't have a systematic ways of receiving training [that's purposefully for their needs] after graduation," Feese said.

Another 816 college lecturers and 4,000 student teachers are expected to benefit from pre-service training in collaboration with National Commission for Colleges of Education.

Feese added TDP would also demonstrate innovations in teaching, including use of lowcost mobile phones so teachers can review training lesson notes and videos preloaded on regular phone memory cards.

The six states - Jigawa, Katsina, Zamfara, Kaduna, Kano, Niger - were selected for TDP on grounds of most need, where teachers most need training to teach children better.

Recent UNICEF data indicate tha while 10.5 million are out of school, 24 million children in school are learning very little.

Speaking at the launch, education permanent secretary, MacJohn Nwaobiala said the right quality of teachers was important "because the most excellent curriculum, without the right individuals to communicate it will not yield the intended results."