Enhancing the Capacities of Teachers and State Implementation Mechanisms for Learning Recovery: The Experience of the National Teachers’ Institute (NTI), Kaduna, Nigeria

Abstract

PCF10 Sub-theme: Fostering Lifelong Learning // The National Teachers’ Institute (NTI) with technical support from Commonwealth of Learning (COL) conceived a Learning Recovery programme (LRP) aimed at enhancing the capacities of basic education teachers and state implementation mechanisms to effectively address eventualities that might occur in the future due to the covid-19 pandemic. A total of 2000 teachers, 42 teacher educators and an estimated 242,000 students were targeted by the project in two northwestern states of Nigeria (Kebbi & Sokoto). The main principles that guided the implementation of the project included, concentration on the development of podcasts and other multimedia resources, enhancing the capacities of teachers and state mechanisms on the use of the developed multimedia resources, developing teacher networks and support structures for mobile learning and institutionalizing the use of the blended learning approach by teachers in 50 selected schools. A small sample of 42 Master Trainers (MTs) comprising 20 teacher mentors (10 each from Kebbi and Sokoto states) and 22 teacher educator mentors from NTI, Kaduna) were trained on podcasts development and accelerated learning approaches. This crop of MTs was used to cascade the training to 2000 teachers in the two states. Each of the 10 State MTs was allocated and virtually joined with 100 teachers in a WhatsApp Group for effective mentoring and each of the 20 State MTs was assigned to and virtually joined with two teacher educator mentors from the NTI who monitored and coordinated the implementation of the Project at the state level. A set of validated pre and post training questionnaires (Podcast Learning Questionnaire [PLQ]) and Learner-Centred Lesson Questionnaire [LCLQ]) was used to elicit information from a sample of 250 respondents, which was subjected to descriptive statistical analysis of means and standard deviation. The findings among others, revealed that with little tangible and guided technical support teachers could acquire knowledge and skills in the actual processes of podcast development and use in their instructional practices. Among the key recommendations of the Project was the need to scale up the training to include more schools and teachers using the capacity already developed in the two states. // Paper ID 3640