Education
By Nicholas Obisike
Aba (Abia) June 4, 2024 (NAN) The Civil Society Action Coalition on Education for All (CSACEFA) has commenced the implementation of Early Child Learning Advancement Programme (E-CLAP) in support of primary education in Abia.
The Coordinator of the group for the South-East, Mrs Eunice Egbuna, disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Aba on Tuesday.
She said that the programme was sponsored by Sterling Bank, through its Education Support outlet, Sterling One Foundation, which engaged CSACEFA to implement the programme in Abia.
Egbuna said that the programme, designed to last for eight months, would commence at Umuola Central School, Aba.
She said that the programme would focus on the education of children in their first three years in the primary school (Basic 1-3) with emphasis on the use of mother tongue in educating them.
“This is with the belief that mother tongue helps to impact lasting knowledge on the children and help them to learn faster.
“In addition, it focuses on employment of new techniques, well-tailored technology, application of non-formal education curriculum and innovative resource materials in the teaching and learning of literacy and numeracy.
“The programme also promotes safe space application in the teaching and learning environments as well as recourse to the rights of the learner,” Egbuna said.
She said that the programme would be more beneficial to children in the rural areas and conflict-prone environments, who always lag behind academically for the lack of exposure and concentration.
“Because of that, their first three years in the primary school is punctuated by a lot of struggles to adjust to new environment, which often lead to the lack of concentration and difficulty in learning.
“This programme, therefore, aims at injecting the use of technologies, such as audio-visual materials, non-formal education curriculum and other innovations.
According to her, the programme also aims at the injection of resource materials to sustain their interest and improve their learning ability in literacy and numeracy,” Egbuna said.
She opined that by the end of the whole exercise, a good number of beneficiaries would have been impacted on to the level of being able to show mastery of reading and writing.
“They will all do better in calculation within their scope in basic four to six, and to achieve all these, teachers of the early grade pupils will be trained to adapt to this new trend.
“They will be monitored after the training to access how well or otherwise they are doing in the application of the learning, as the pupils’ learning outcome will also be monitored,” she said.
Egbuna said that Umuola Central School, Aba, had been chosen as the pilot school and that the outcome of the project would determine its extension to other schools in Abia.
She urged parents to support their children in learning the new learning technology and the juxtaposition of formal and non-formal curriculum in the school.
This, she said, would help the children to develop interest in skills of their choice.
NAN reports that an interactive session was also organised for the parents of the pupils, who commended the organisers and sponsors of the programme.
They described it as a laudable initiative. (NAN)(www.nannews.ng)
NUO/EMAF
Edited by Emmanuel Afonne