By Maryam Garba Hassan
The National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE), in collaboration with UNESCO and International Institute for Capacity Building in Africa (IICBA) has organised a 5-day capacity building workshop for Teacher Educators of Early Childhood Care and Education in Colleges of Education in the North-Central and North- West zones.
The workshop, with the theme: “Towards Enhancing Development of Culturally Relevant Early Childhood Care and Education for Pre-Service Teachers”, which commenced yesterday in Abuja, was organised to build the capacity of teacher educators on the best global practices of training indigenous Early Childhood Education for pre-service teachers using UNESCO and IICBA’s “Indigenous Early Childhood Care and Education Modules to support the successful implementation of NCE’s ECCE curriculum.
In his welcome address, Executive Secretary of the Commission, Prof. Muhammad Ibn Junaid, said the NCE’s ECCE Curriculum is in tandem with regional efforts in ensuring a culturally relevant ECCE approach that is both African in orientation and affordable to local population in Africa.
He said the Commission has reviewed its teacher education curriculum and aligned it with that of basic Education to make it more relevant and adequate for teaching at the basic education level.
He said the review has led to expansion of NCE Minimum Standards to include five new level specific NCE programmes, which are Primary Education Studies, Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE), Junior Secondary School Education, Adult and Non-Formal Education and Special Needs Education to produce specialist teachers for each of the five focal areas.
Junaid further explained that the Commission, with support from DFID under the Teacher Development Programme, has embarked on series of orientation workshops for college management and lecturers on the new curriculum and college restructuring.
In her good will message, technical expert from UNESCO, Mrs. Patience Awopegbato, said UNESCO emphasizes on early childhood education, which is the foundation for basic education because Africa must have a strong and viral teaching force to have qualitative teaching and education.
