Redesign education curriculum now, invest in teachers’capacity, stakeholders urge FG
By Elizabbeth Osayande
Stakeholders in the education have said that the right time to redesign the nation’s education curriculum is now owing to the shift in virtually all facets of life, especially in the education sector due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
This was stated during the presentation of awards to winners of Teachers’ Appreciation Programme (Best Virtual Class Teach for Change, TFC 2020) organised by the Julienne School Support Foundation, held via Zoom recently in Lagos.
According to them, it was high time stakeholders at the state and federal government invested more on teachers’ capacity and training in order to meet the realities of the new normal.
Speaking at the event, the President/Founder, Julienne School Support Foundation, Juliana Modupe Ogundumu, said, ” Owing to the new normal caused by the Covid-19, there is urgency to redesign our curriculum and create an enabling environment for teachers’ professional development and automatic implementation of digital technology for effective teaching. This is because we are living in a world that is changing rapidly and we need to move with the global changes.”
On the role on innovation, Ogundumu reiterated that all stakeholders including students and teachers must play a pivotal role in advancing education in the country.
Her words: “Students across the globe are future co-workers and competitors. We need to make every child valued. While we are waiting for government to improve on education performance in our country, you will agree with me that collaboratively, we can achieve a lot.
“Again as school owners, we need to invest more on teachers. This will have an overall effect on the performance of the students. Teachers should be ready to meet up with any disruption that may occur in the future.” She said.
Ogundumu also explained that TFC conference was launched in 2019 to create awareness and build capacity for teachers on how they could leverage on technology to meet up with the challenges of the 21st Century.
“We did not know that we were building the foundation for the pandemic of 2020, which mandated all schools to go on-line in these unprecedented times.
“This brought a new wave of evidence and created urgency for teacher’s professional development and automatic implementation of digital technology for effective teaching. We are living in a world that is changing rapidly.” Ogundumu reiterated.
On his part, a lecturer and management consultant, Department of Educational Management, Faculty of Education, University of Lagos, UNILAG, Dr Jacob Adeyanju, said that schools should be dynamic in their pursuit of meaningful changes.
His words: “As a school or an institution, we should be able to accommodate whatever changes life bring and be able to teach for change.
“Since life is not stagnant, we must cope with these changes by redesigning our curriculum, teaching method, laws and also accommodate all the changes while we continue to move with our normal activities in the lockdown.”
Speaking on the blessings of technology in the face of Covid-19, the educationist noted, “In addition, we have got a kind of double benefit if one can effectively use technology.
“It will first of all serve the purpose of the regular benefits of the normal instructional materials, as well as enable us to continue to move despite the pandemic.
“The pandemic paralysed almost all human activities worldwide. With technology, we have come to realise that we don’t have to ground all our activities, including teaching and learning in the classrooms.
“You will recall that during pandemic, some universities in advanced countries graduated students and did convocation. Here in Nigeria, Osun State University was able to matriculate its new students.
“With this, technology has made it possible for us to continue with our normal activities,” he stated.