By Philip Yatai

Gov Nasir El-Rufa’i of Kaduna State on Monday reiterated his administration’s commitment to improving the quality and efficiency of teachers to deliver quality teaching and learning in public schools.

El-Rufa’i stated this at the opening of a five-day training for 300 secondary school teachers, organised in collaboration with African Federation of Teaching Regulatory Authorities (AFTRA) in Kaduna.

El-Rufa’i, who was represented at the event by the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Education, Mrs. Phoebe Yayi, said that his administration would continue to give utmost priority to teacher professional development.

According to him, availability of quality teachers is critical to providing the needed quality education in public primary and secondary schools to make the pupils and students productive in the future.

“We are doing all we can to improve the infrastructural deficit in our public school, but teacher quality is also critical to achieving our set targets in the sector.

“Our children will be better equipped if our public schools have qualified teachers that are efficient and delivering quality teaching that would make the desired impact.”

The governor said that his administration would continue to train and retrain school teachers to equip them with the necessary skills and competency to impact positively in the lives of children in the state.

“Our dream is to make Kaduna great, but we can only achieve that if our public schools are delivering the needed quality teaching that will prepare our children for the developmental task ahead.

“We have the political will and we are mobilising resources to develop the education sector that will respond to the developmental needs of our dear state,” El-Rufa’i said.

Also speaking, AFTRA Desk Officer in the state, Mrs. Kennedy Gwamna, that the training was organised by the state government in collaboration with AFTRA to improve the quality of education in the state.

Gwamna said that the 300 participants from secondary schools across the state would be trained on effective teaching of mathematics, English, biology, chemistry and physics.

“But beyond that, the teachers will be train on expected professional standard and conduct, because the Kaduna State Quality Assurance Authority will be going round to evaluate the delivery of teaching in public schools.

“We equally want to sensitise them on child protection issues as part of efforts to check against the incidence of child abuse in public schools,” she said.