By Omon-Julius Onabu
Secretary to Delta State Government (SSG), Mr. Chiedu Ebie, has said that the new Teachers Professional Development Centre built by the state government at Owa-Oyibu, Ika North-East Local Government Area of the state, would not be limited to the training needs of teachers in the state but teachers from other states of the federation as well.
Fielding questions from newsmen after inspecting the newly constructed centre preparatory to its inauguration, Ebie said that the centre was one of the fallouts of the January 2016 Education Summit in Asaba, where the need to upscale and enhance the skills of teachers and enhanced learning through training and retraining was emphasized.
Ebie, who was in company with the state commissioner for information,you Mr Charles Aniagwu, noted, “The crucial area revovolved around the skills and training of the teachers. So, at the end of the day, it was resolved that a teacher development centre be established, which will be specifically targeted at the training and retraining of our teachers in the State .”
He noted that “a team was therefore sent out to the Centre for Management Development, (CMD) ,Teachers Registeration Council of Nigeria (TRCN) and a few other institutions to understudy and understand them, and then fuse all we can get from there into one document that will lead to the establishment of this institute.
“So, what we have here today is a centre where we can focus on the training of teachers and where we have tailor-made programmes and, at the end of the day, the teachers are well-trained instead of running ad-hoc training programmes that are not well coordinated by one central body.
“The two buildings consist of two auditoria having 500 and 200 seater capacity respectively, having syndicate rooms and meeting room, home economics laboratory, residential lodge of 110 rooms, physical and virtual libraries, computer rooms, maintenance and power house, surveillance and security rooms and everything you need for the proper training of teachers.
“We will also have a desk for the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria here because it is also a prerequisite for every teacher to be registered”, Mr Ebie added.
Nevertheless, the Delta SSG emphasized that the upgrade of teachers knowledge was indispensable and in tandem with modern trends in education, adding that “trainees from the school would be issued certificates at the end of their training.”
On the relevance of the project to the SMART agenda, the Commissioner for Information Mr Charles Aniagwu said that the centre would help nurture fresh crop of teachers in the teaching profession, who would consequently impact on knowledge seekers in the country’s education system.
Aniagwu added that the ongoing harvest of projects in the state courtesy of the Okowa administration, was a clearly shows that the second tenure of Governor Ifeanyi Okowa was committed to the development of the state in line with his ‘Stronger Delta’ vision.
