Odahiekwu Ogunde, Yenagoa
An American technology company, Microsoft Corporation, has concluded plans to train 90,000 pupils and 12,000 teachers on e-learning in Bayelsa State.
Bayelsa Commissioner for Education, Mr. Gentle Emelah, revealed this on Tuesday in Yenagoa, the state capital, during the opening of a two-day Education Transformation Workshop for Directors and Heads of Agencies in the Ministry of Education.
The workshop, which held virtually, witnessed lectures delivered by officials of the Microsoft to keep top officials of the education ministry abreast with technology-based learning.
The commissioner explained that due to the global Covid-19 pandemic, the state government saw the need to partner Microsoft to train teachers and young Bayelsans on how to use the Internet for studies.
Emelah stated: “Due to the global pandemic caused by the COVID-19, we, as a state government, are looking for new ways to impart knowledge to our children and the way to go is e-library.
“For that reason, we are partnering Microsoft; they are going to train 12,000 teachers for us. Of course, you know we can’t get 12,000 teachers from the public service.
So, we are going to involve some private school teachers also because the children there are all ours.
“They are going to equally train 90,000 students on how to use the Internet for studies.
Based on that, as administrators of the system, we felt that we have to acquire that knowledge so that in case we want to go out to the field to know what our teachers are doing and what our children are learning, we should be abreast and know what to do.”
He noted that the training of the teachers would be done in May, this year while the training of the children would follow thereafter.
The commissioner also revealed that Bayelsa would organize an education summit in the month of May where a 15-year policy framework on the way forward for education in the state would be drawn.
He pointed out that crime was on the increase in the society and the majority of the perpetrators were youths, most of whom are school dropouts, because the educational system had not been effective enough.
He also said that the state government had perfected arrangements to key into the Federal Government’s school feeding programme where each public school pupil from primary one to three would be entitled to a meal per day.
Earlier, Bayelsa State Governor Douye Diri had sent a good will message where he thanked Microsoft for partnering the state government to provide modern ways of learning to young learners in the state.