The Bayelsa State Government and Microsoft Corporation have partnered to train 12,000 teachers and 90,000 pupils on e-learning as part of the state’s vision for digital advancement of education.
Commissioner for Education, Gentle Emelah, stated this during a two-day virtual education transformation workshop, which commenced yesterday in Yenagoa,
He explained that the initiative was necessitated by the impact of the COVID-19 crisis which disrupted global systems and caused a sharp paradigm shift towards e-learning with digital tools.
He that the 12,000 teachers would be drawn from public and private schools to ensure that teaching manpower in both sectors were adequately captured for the benefits of pupils.
He said, “Because of the global COVID-19 pandemic, we are equally learning a new way of reaching and teaching our children and the way to go is e-learning. For that reason, we have partnered with Microsoft.They (Microsoft) are going to train 12,000 teachers for us. And of course, we can’t get 12,000 from the public service so we are going to involve some private school teachers also because the children there are all our children.
“They are equally going to train 90,000 students on how to use the internet for study. Based on that, we felt that as administrators of the system, have to acquire that knowledge so that we know what our teachers are doing when we go out on inspection.”
Microsoft Team Lead in charge of Middle East and Africa, Ms Jaye Richard-Hill, in her remarks, said the workshop was based on the organisation’s “16 key components of a successful transformation strategy” under the four pillars of Microsoft’s Education Transformation Framework (ETF).
107700cookie-checkBayelsa, Microsoft Partner Empowers 12,000 Teachers