16th April, 2019
The Defence and Police Officers’ Wives Association (DEPOWA), have commenced a 3-day training on “thinking skills’’ for no fewer than 53 teachers drawn from its primary and secondary schools.
Speaking at the opening of the training on Tuesday in Abuja, Mrs Omobolanle Olonisakin, the President of DEPOWA, stressed the need to train teachers on current concept, thinking and research in their fields.
Olonisakin, who is the wife of the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Gen. Gabriel Olonisakin, noted that building and developing teachers’ capacity was necessary for them to impact positively on students.
According to her, thinking skills lesson should be part of curriculum if students are to solve problems individually and creatively.
Omobolanle said this underscore the need for teachers to be conversant with relevant techniques to enhance their thinking and teaching skills in order to incorporate them into teaching practices.
Lt.-Cmdr. Festus Onewokae, the Commandant of DEPOWA schools said the teachers needed to be trained and retrained to meet up with current realities.
Onewokae said: “Workshop like this helps to bring to bear what the current teaching strategies are and how teachers can use them to improve their teaching and profession.
“If a teacher is not being trained but left to use past experience to teach, he or she may not be able to meet up with challenges of today.’’
The theme of the training, which was organised in collaboration with IB8 Ventures and Investment Ltd., was: “Higher order thinking and teaching skills: A recipe for national development.’’
Mr Kunle Olatunji, the Coordinator of IB8 ventures and investment Ltd., and also one of the resource persons, said the training was aimed at improving the teachers’ skills.
Olatunji noted that teachers play important role in the building of Nations.