175 Student Teachers Commence training as Nigeria Learning Passport takes off in ABU Zaria

By Uangbaoje Alex, Kaduna

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), supported Learning Passport aimed to revolutionize teacher’s education in Nigeria, on Thursday commenced in Ahmadu Bello University, (ABU) Zaria.

UNICEF, signed an MoU with ABU in December 2024, to train pre-service and in-service teachers on the Nigeria Learning Passport (NLP).

The partnership which is the first with tertiary institution in the country, presents the education sector with an opportunity to transform teaching and learning and also prepare a new generation of educators who are proficient in using technology to enrich student learning which will align with global education standards and Nigeria’s educational aspirations, according to UNICEF.

NLP is a digital learning platform with online, mobile, and offline capability that enables continuous access to quality education. The objective is to support children and youths in the continuity of learning and acquisition of skills for the future.

It is a flexible and adaptable platform, allowing learners and teachers to easily adopt it as their learning management system or use it to complement classroom-based learning and existing digital learning platforms.

On Thursday 175 student teachers in the department of Science Education, ABU Zaria, commenced their training session with NLP official providing them with an orientation on how to fully participate and benefit from the program.

Speaking on the sidelines of the training, Kaduna State Coordinator for NLP, Philip Mamma, revealed that about 83,000 learners and teachers are already on the project in the State.

According to him, “our target for this year is to enroll about 60,000 additional learners and we are working hard to ensure that we don’t only enroll them, we also ensure usage and course completion.

“Today we trained about 175 students who are in 300 and 400 levels and we think that in the next couple of months they will roll out to become teachers in different schools.

“So we are hoping that our next stage of training will be training about more than 200 teachers and about 80 to 100 lecturers in ABU so that the NLP can be fully implemented on campus.”

Mamma, noted that though there are a lot of challenges facing the program, he assured that they are surmountable as UNICEF has already provided about 880 tablets to 40 schools in Kaduna State.

“Airtel is also supporting with routers so that learners and teachers can interface with Nigerian Learning Passport without limitation of the data. And these routers are always giving data on a monthly basis for students and teachers to continue learning in schools.

“We are hoping that by the end of this project, every Nigerian child will have an opportunity to have quality education and there will not be any barrier to teaching and learning.” He added 

Also speaking, Head of Department, Science Education, ABU Zaria, Professor Jonathan Saleh Mari, said he is excited that ABU is the pilot tertiary institution for the program globally and his department was selected to start.

The Don, noted that the introduction of technology is increasingly enhancing education and that applying the NLP would help teachers and learners to solve problems and learn modern skills.

“So we are happy that our students are the first to embrace this initiative and this opportunity will put them ahead of their colleagues in other universities.

“And we thank UNICEF for introducing this. Truly speaking, Africa is not benefiting from people who are helping us to provide food, what we need is for them to provide us with facilities for learning.

“Where knowledge is, poverty cannot be there. If they give us opportunity to learn, I believe poverty will leave Africa. There’s nobody that has access to knowledge that will live in poverty.

“And I believe when we have quality education, Nigeria will lead the world and ABU too, with these facilities, I believe very soon our students will be heard all over the world.” He said.

Professor Saleh, also disclosed that the institution already inculcated the program into it corriculum immediately after signing MoU with UNICEF and have since been using it to teach the students.

Some of the students who spoke, called for extension of the program to other tertiary institutions in the country to enhance teaching and learning skills across the country.

While expressing appreciation to UNICEF, Latifat Ahmed, a 400 level student of the department, said the courses are quite interesting and educational enough for students.

“We are already taking them in our course work and has encouraged me to become more productive in my activities and to become a better teacher. I’ve learned so much from the training and I’m willing to go into it and take more lessons.

“The technology has been a great idea, based on teaching aids, they are already available for us and it is quite interesting, especially when you are using the gamified method of teaching, it allows the students to be able to understand much more better on the topic or subjects you are taking on. She explained.

On his part, another student, Salisu Mushiri, a 300 level student, said because of the importance of the program “there’s an urgent need to integrate many more teachers into the program so that our future teachers will be the ones that can use this kind of learning platform to teach.”