Lions Club International to train 1,500 Oyo teachers on skills to tackle bullying, truancy, drug abuse

Lions Club International Foundation has concluded a plan to train about 1,500 teachers in Oyo through a programme tagged ‘Lion Quest’ on how to tackle bullying, truancy, drug abuse and other social vices among secondary schools’ students in the state.

Making this disclosure at a three-day workshop in Ibadan, Oyo State capital, the Nigeria coordinator of Lions Quest, Kola Oyekanmi, explained that “the scheme is a curriculum and evidence based programme, with emphasis on training the youth on social emotional learning, strategies and techniques for young adults.

Oyekanmi, while speaking about the training, said “in Nigeria, we are implementing the Lions Quest skills for the adolescent, targeting secondary schools. We have started the programme in some secondary schools in Lagos and part of Ogun State.

According to him, “we found out that all the elements of the skills suit our public institutions in order to address cases of bullying, truancy, drug abuse and all other social vices. Our intention is to ensure that the students go through the training in terms of self-management, social emotional strategies, relationship skills and responsible decision making.

“Recently, we had a breakthrough with the approval of the Oyo State Ministry of Education to implement the programme in all the secondary schools in the state.

“Our focus is to get the adolescent educated in a conducive environment and consciously create and give them the opportunity to become responsible individuals of strong character.”

According to him, the first step of the implementation of the programme is the training of teachers on the curriculum of Lions Quest, adding “that is why we are training selected teachers. We have been given the latitude to go to all the schools.

“Our capacity cannot cope with more than 40 teachers at this three-day workshop. About eight schools are contributing five teachers each. So, we are exposing the teachers who are undergoing this training to the elements of the programme.

“After the training, they will be certified and their certificates will be internationally recognised.”

“We will be implementing the training of the teachers on Lions Quest in Oyo State in the next 12 months and we are projecting to train nothing less than 1,500 teachers. The responsibilities of the parents are also factored into this training, because parents are the first teachers and primary educators.

“The three basic learning skills that are taught in the training include: skills for growing up, which is suitable for primary school pupils, skills for adolescent, which is meant for Junior Secondary School (JSS) ages and skills for adults, which suitable for Senior Secondary School (SSS) and undergraduates of higher institutions,” Oyekanmi posited.