A 12 member delegation from the ministry of Education in Nigeria visited English in Action project on 15-19 November 2013.
The visit was organised by the Teacher Development Programme (TDP) Nigeria funded by UK aid. TDP is a large scale teacher education programme targeting to reach 66,000 teachers from grade 1-9 in three core subjects – English, Maths, Science & Technology. Similar to English in Action, TDP will adapt the ‘Trainer in the pocket’ model for supporting the teachers. Purpose of this study visit was to see EIA programme in Bangladesh and to expose participants to the innovative ‘trainer in the pocket’ model for teacher training and review how the model can be adapted in the context of Nigeria.
The delegation led by Mrs.Agwaoma Joyce Eke, Deputy Director for School Support visited EIA classrooms, government dignitaries from the ministry of Primary & Mass Education, Bangladesh Government and EIA team members including consortium partner The Open University, UK and BBC Media Action. The delegation also participated in relevant discussions during the EIA strategy meeting.
Johan Bentinck, Team Leader-EIA, said, “English in Action project’s impacts and lesson-learnt are suitable for being used elsewhere, blending teaching and technology in a fine balance is what we have successfully achieved. The visit from education ministry Nigeria allowed us to share with them the experiences gathered through implementing one of the largest education projects in Bangladesh, working with teacher professional development. We believe that EIA is a model project which can be replicated in similar developing context around the world”.
After the 5 days visit to English in Action in Bangladesh, Hon. MurtalaAdamu, Executive Chairman, Zamfara State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) said, “The DFID supported visit to Bangladesh was indeed a memorable epoch. It was educative and informative. It shows how with minimum resources, but plenty of determination lives of many ordinary people, children in school and in their teachers can be impacted upon positively. Confidence of the teachers is enhanced and so were their skills and effectiveness. I visited one of the schools and had seen how a combination of simple technology and other instructional materials can make teaching more effective, lively and interactive. But there are challenges still, Bangladesh Government should scale up the programme to deploy the mobile technology for use to assist in the teaching in other subjects”.
