Taraba school teachers on Information, Communication Technology (ICT), to enhance the teaching of ICT in the state’s primary and secondary schools.
The other organisations in the partnership are System Application Programme (SAP) and Coderina Education and Technology Foundation.
Speaking at the opening of the Train-The-Trainer (TTT) programme, anchored by District 9125 of Rotary International, Mr Sylvester Danjuma, project chairman of Jalingo City Rotary Club, explained that the exercise was aimed at deepening ICT literacy among teachers and students.
He said that Coderina was the Coordinator for Africa Code Week (ACW) in Nigeria, which is an initiative of SAP.
“ACW organises coding language training every year, throughout Africa and in Nigeria Rotary, in collaboration with Coderina, EdTech organises teachers to attend the training as part of its contribution to education”, Danjuma said.
He added that the program was part of events lined up to mark the African CODE Week, sponsored by SAP, UNESCO, other International Agencies, and anchored by Coderina in Nigeria and District 9125 of Rotary International in Taraba.
Danjuma added that because ICT had since become the vogue and in which no society can afford to be left behind in learning the computer language and technology, SAP, UNESCO and Coderina were taking the lead in providing the enabling environment for schools to inculcate same into students.
He disclosed that since 2019, over 600,000 students had benefited from the training in Nigeria, while about 3.5 million had benefited across Africa.
The exercise, which was taking place in Taraba for the first time, had drawn 40 teachers from public schools and 10 others from private schools, he said, adding that the selection of the teachers was carried out by the state and Federal Ministries of Education.
The newly trained Scratch coding language teachers are now primed to pass on the knowledge gained to their students during the week-long ACW from Oct. 18 to Oct. 30, 2021.
In a goodwill message to the event, held at the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) conference hall, Jalingo, the Commissioner for Basic and Secondary Education, Mr Johannes Jigem commended the organisers for bringing it to Taraba for the first time.
Represented by the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry, Mr Fred Taki, the commissioner said that the state government was spending significant resources on education, but that the private sector and international organizations should partner with the state in critical areas in providing basic education to communities.
Also, in her own goodwill message, the President, Rotary Club of Jalingo City, Mrs Olabisi Alaba urged the participants to disseminate information and skills they learnt from the one-day training to their students.
Alaba stressed that Coderina expected them to work towards increasing the number of beneficiaries of the programme before the next round of the exercise in September 2022.
Speaking in a similar vein, the President, Rotary Club of Jalingo Prestige, Mr Jerry Oliver, encouraged the teachers to see the opportunity to be trained in Coding Education Technology as a rare one.
He encouraged them to keep themselves abreast with the technology, as they were expected to bring it to bear on their work going forward.
