By CrossRiverWatch Admin
Cross River state governor, Senator Ben Ayade says his administration chose to establish the Teachers Continuous Training College (TCTC), Biase currently under construction so as to revolutionize the teaching profession in Nigeria.
The college, according to Ayade will commence academic activities in September and commended contractors handling the project for a job well done.
This is even as the college is already attracting interests from the Federal Government through the Governing Council and Management of National Teachers Institute (NTI) who have declared the intention to train teachers from across the nation at the college starting from September.
The Director General of NTI, Prof. Garba Azare made this known at the 6th meeting of the 8th Governing Council held on Thursday in Abuja.
He said the curriculum and design of TCTC fits the capacity building model of NTI nationwide.
Meanwhile, governor Ayade who was speaking during an inspection tour of the College to assess the progress of work said the TCTC will have West Africa as its catchment area.
The focus, he said, will be on the continuous training of teachers using advanced technology and teaching manual.
“I am a Governor and a Professor, my deputy is also a Professor and we believe that the right thing to do is to deal with the issue of quality of teaching thoroughly. We believe strongly that the educational system in Nigeria is almost collapsing, so Cross River State is beginning a renaissance. That is why we are setting up this Teachers Continuous Training College (TCTC)”, Professor Ayade said.
The Cross River state governor said the Teachers College is a world class training and retraining facility whose catchment area extends beyond Nigeria.
“We are building a world class West Africa Teachers Continues Training Centre to cater to all teachers within the whole of West Africa sub region and to start the regeneration of ethics, morality, quality of research, science and technology including ICT in a modern concept in line with 21st century”, Ayade stressed.
He explained that because of the expanded frontiers of the College, recruitment of lecturers will not be restricted to Nigeria.
“This school represents the whole essence of our being, that as Professors, we want to deal with education from it roots and take us back to where Nigeria’s foundation was. That’s why most of the lecturers that will come to teach here are not necessarily going to be Nigerians.
Our target is competence, so whether they are Indians, Pakistanis, or Ghanaians or whatever country they come from provided they are the best in the subject matter, we will recruit them.”
He said that his administration is taking education in Cross River to a level of digitization to ensure quality output.
“The College comes in form of train the trainers concept. The teachers themselves will be taught the use of ICT to facilitate training with digital touch screens. Cross River will lead the digital world.
As we are driving agriculture as a leading state in agriculture, so are we going to take education to the zenith. I think that when I’m done, Cross Riverians will know that I came in prepared and that I had a clear idea of where I was coming from and where I’m going to. Nigerians will be surprise what we are going to produce out of this College.”
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