The Lagos State government has reaffirmed its commitment to remain a model in science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics (STEAM) education at all levels for other states of the federation to follow.
Chairman of the state’s Teaching Service Commission (TESCOM), Mrs Elizabeth Ariyo, gave the assurance at a two-day capacity training programme organised for public secondary school teachers and their colleagues in technical colleges across the six education districts of the state.
The programme tagged “STEAM up Lagos” and held in Ikorodu between Monday, August 30 and Tuesday, August 31, has a total of 320 including TESCOM officials as participants.
Speaking further, Mrs Ariyo, represented by Commissioner 3 (Ikorodu), Mr Adeleke Kara, said STEAM up Lagos was designed to sharpen the technical expertise of teachers in the state-owned schools so as to make them more effective in their service delivery using technology irrespective of subjects they are teaching in both physical and online classrooms.
According to her, Lagos State had already keyed into the use of technology by its teachers and other educators in their service delivery long before the outbreak of COVID-19 and that is why it was easier for them to blend into the new normal that now becomes the practice globally.
She said any teacher who fails to apply STEAM education irrespective of subjects in this 21st Century would be left behind and also become irrelevant in no distance time.
She said that was why the state government aside from retraining its teachers was also providing technology devices and internet connections to schools.
She however urged participants to make meaningful use of the knowledge gained through the programme on their students and other endeavours.
Giving more insights into the training, the Senior Special Assistant to the Governor on Education, Ms Adetola Salau, under whose office the training project domiciles, said the training focus on four areas, namely: curriculum design & integration, teacher engagement & training, setting up of STEAM classrooms & laboratories and engagement of students in STEAM co-curricular activities and would be in batches until a large number of teachers including those in schools with special students are covered.
She said the project was in tandem with the THEMES agenda of Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu led government with technology and education as part of the focal areas designed towards making the state a smart city.
Acknowledging that teaching and learning are no longer restricted to traditional classroom format where both teachers and students must have to converge physically before activities could take place, Ms Salau said the use of technology including robots have become in-thing in the 21st-century classrooms.
She told participants the need for them to frequently hone their skills so as to remain on top of their profession as the practice by their counterparts in the developed countries.
Some of the participants, however, told Nigerian Tribune that the training exposed them to new teaching pedagogies that would certainly enhance their performance when back in class.
One of them, Mr Mathew Olayioye, who teaches the English language at Adebola Baptist Junior School, Surulere, urged the government to bring the training down to the district level so as to give an opportunity to more teachers.
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