BAF Turns Two, Builds Capacity of Public School Teachers
Uchechukwu Nnaike
To commemorate its second anniversary, the Bunmi Adedayo Foundation (BAF) has kicked off a 12-month professional development training for about 200 teachers from 16 public primary schools in Lagos State.
The training, facilitated by the Teaching Network Foundation, is aimed at sharpening the skills of public school teachers in the state for better learning output and improved performance of the pupils.
In his remarks, the Chairman, Board of Directors of the foundation, Mr. Babatunde Akinleye, said the focus of the foundation has always been to build the capacity of primary school teachers, adding that a needs analysis was carried out by the consultant to identify the areas where their skills need to be enhanced and based on analysis, a 12-month programme was drawn up.
He said the consultant also designed the curriculum for the workshop, which would enable the teachers to contribute the knowledge they already have, share ideas and develop their capacity. He said there would also be follow up by the foundation to monitor the value the teachers would add in their classrooms.
“Our focus in the foundation is to have better learning outcome, better results from the children to enable them compete with those who attend private schools.”
On the foundation’s achievements so far, Akinleye said: “The journey has been interesting, we have achieved more than we expected and thank God for the support from various individuals and organisations. There are always challenges, but we have not come across any challenge that we have not been able to overcome.”
The Chief Executive Officer of the foundation, Mrs. Yemisi Adedayo, who underscored the importance of continuous professional development, said it will enhance the competence of the participants.
While reiterating the foundation’s mission of enhancing the learning outcome of public primary schools, she said it has adopted three more primary schools, in addition to the two existing ones. She said by 2020, the schools would have been transformed, adding that all the projects in the schools would be needs-driven.
Also speaking, the Training Consultant, Dr. Dolapo Ogunbanwo, who commended the foundation for the initiative, said without training and developing teachers, who are the gate keepers, the foundation vision cannot be attained.
She said the training would afford the participants the opportunity to share their knowledge because when people that already have a lot of experience bring their ideas together, they further enrich themselves.
In his remarks, the Chairman of the State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB), Dr. Ganiyu Sopeyin, who thanked the foundation for its support, said “BAF has shown us over the years that they are indeed our dependable and reliable partner in the wheel of progress in our quest to provide qualitative and quantitative education for our children who are leaders of tomorrow.”
While reiterating the importance of teachers in education, he said training of teachers is one of the important components of the Universal Basic Education Programme (UBE), adding that training and re-training can therefore not be over-emphasised.
He urged the beneficiaries to take advantage of the golden opportunity, participate actively so that they can go back as resource persons to train others.