Trade subjects get boost with curriculum upgrade
A study commissioned by the Development Research and Project Centre (dRPC) recently, examined the craft curriculum in Nigeria through content analysis. The result indicated that with the exception of leather goods curriculum which contained some entrepreneurship content, the trade subjects’ curricula are solely technical.
However, the curricula for animal husbandry, accounting, fisheries, catering craft, plumbing and pipe fitting, radio, TV and electrical work as well as food and nutrition do not provide skills and motivation to encourage entrepreneurial success.
The centre has meanwhile, worked with the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC) and the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) to review and upgrade the 34 trade subjects’ curricula. The main goal of entrepreneurship curriculum is to provide students with knowledge, skills and motivation for success in entrepreneurial ventures in varieties of settings.
The curriculum upgrade was carried out by experts, practitioners and university dons with expertise on the selected trade subjects at a workshop in Abuja. Teachers’ handbooks that would help in teaching the revised subject curricular for senior secondary schools were also developed.
In his remark, the Executive Secretary of NERDC, Professor Isma’ila Junaidu, said the move was to help teachers to smoothly implement any trade curriculum.
“Our mission in this workshop is to develop guides that will help teachers effectively teach the revised and enriched 34 trade subjects curricular,” he said.
Professor Isma’ila said the council had prepared a sevenunit structure in the teacher’s guide for 34 trades and entrepreneurship curriculum.
They included understanding the curriculum, planning to teach, sample scope and sequencing, modern teaching approaches, sample lesson plans, resources for teaching the trade and assessment among others, he said.
He said participants at the workshop produced a draft teacher’s guide for teaching of various trade subjects.
The Programme Manager, dRPC, Umar Ahmad, said the centre resolved to work with NERDC and UNIDO to infuse entrepreneurship education into the 34 trade subjects’ curricular to improve the skills of students.
He said the previous curricula didn’t provide skills and motivation to encourage entrepreneurial success.
Ahmad said the review process which started with an entrepreneurship education infusion workshop, went through critique and editorial workshops for trades/ entrepreneurship curricula. The revised trade subjects’ curriculum was finally approved by the National Council on Education on July 27, 2017, he said.
In her presentation at the workshop, a facilitator from NERDC, Dr. Grace Ajogun, said scoping and sequencing were vital in the plan a teacher makes prior to teaching.
She said many states haven’t paid particular attention to scope and sequence thereby leaving teachers without basic support.
“Many states don’t do scope and sequence. They leave their teachers to do it while some teachers don’t know how to do it,” she stated.
Ajogun said scope and sequence helped teachers with lesson plan, monitor curriculum coverage in the school year, guide them on what to teach and ensure teaching and learning progressed at the right pace.
She said trade teachers must develop a scope and sequence template for each class, identify skills and performances and arrange the objectives of each lesson.
One of the participants from Kano State Ministry of Science and Technology, Sulaiman Shehu Kankarofi, said the effort had provided several ways for teachers to reach out and connect to students.
“It has been a very tedious but very educative workshop. We have learnt a lot of things like getting new ideas from the resource persons, and the technical session in recognition of individual decision and resourcefulness,” he said.
He said each student should learn at least one trade subject to be self-reliant and contribute to the socio-economic development of the country.
A director with the NERDC, Prof. Kate Nwufo, said entrepreneurship concept would enable secondary school students to execute what they have learnt in school.
“There is no way you can execute the skills that you have learnt without learning how to be a business man. So the entrepreneurship content will help you to be able to know how to source for loan, write business plan, market product and package what you have produced.”