AS part of the efforts to tame the prevailing hostilities between the Fulani herdsmen and farmers, Executive Secretary, National Commission for Nomadic Education (NCNE), Professor Bashir Usman, has tasked nomadic schools’ teachers to engage in conflict resolution in their communities.
Professor Usman gave the directive at the opening of a 5-day teacher training workshop for nomadic teachers in the North East, supported by the office of the Special Assistant to the President on Sustainable Development Goal at Zaranda Hotel, Bauchi State.
The executive secretary said it was the responsibility of nomadic teachers to promote peace among the nomadic youths, parents and the communities as part of awareness to reduce the rate of social vices such as rustling, banditry and insurgency.
He implored them to engage in conflict resolution by calming parents down whenever the need arose and sensitise parents on the need for education that would encourage them to bring their wards for learning, adding that nomadic teachers must serve as role models in conflict resolution.
Professor Bashir said the purpose of the workshop was to update nomadic teachers on skills, knowledge and competencies as well class room management to expose teachers to varieties of innovative strategies and child – centered methodologies aimed at helping the nomadic teachers to deliver contents more effectively as professional teachers.
According to him, teachers would be trained on the use of curriculum guides, record keeping, guidance and counseling and multi grade teaching techniques by ringing into our schools conflict resolution curricula with tools such as social & emotional learning, to increase graduation rates and transform violence, bullying, truancy and other challenges facing nomadic youth.
The executive secretary said the Commission was worried about the state of affairs in the zone especially insecurity relating to insurgency in the zone that led to the destruction and displacement of schools, loss of teachers and pupils which has further complicated and deepened the already existing challenges.
“Considering the importance of primary education as the foundation of any meaningful development in education that is why the Commission carefully selected your base on merit to take advantage of the rare opportunity of having to be trained by the caliber of experts for the purpose of capacity development of teachers that would engender the effective delivery of qualitative tuition in nomadic schools “
In his remark, the Bauchi State Deputy Governor ,who doubles as Commissioner of Education, Mr Nuhu Gidado, stated that providing functional education to nomads would greatly reduce the rate of clashes between farmers and herdsmen, as well as cases of cattle rustling and other social vices.
According to him, this is because functional education would enable the nomads have awareness on the need for peaceful co-existence within the society.
The deputy governor, who was represented by the Permanent Secretary, state Ministry of Education , Alhaji Nasiru Mohammed, commended NCNE for discharging its responsibilities effectively in the region.
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