By Bodunde Tenabe, Ondo
The National Institute for Educational Planning and Administration, Ondo has trained 52 principals drawn from Junior Secondary Schools across Ebonyi State on “Effective School Management and Collaborative Problem Solving”.
Addressing the principals during the opening ceremony, Chairman Ebonyi State Universal Basic Education Board, Mr. Ikpo stated that training and retraining of education managers was an essential step towards achieving government objective of qualitative education for the pupils and students in the state. The chairman flanked by the Head of Training, Ebonyi SUBEB, Mr. Ozim, said, “the training was part of efforts to enhance the quality of teachers and education in general in Ebonyi State”.
The Head of Training, NIEPA Ondo, Dr. Sunday Adegbesan who represented NIEPA’s Director General, Professor Olatoun Akinsolu, said the training was designed to strengthen the competence of JSS principals and re-position them for better service delivery geared towards improving the standard of education in Ebonyi State.
Dr. Sunday Adegbesan noted that the Federal Government through the Universal Basic Education Board were involved in the training.
Dr. Adegbesan said “The overall objective of this training programme is to equip principals of Junior Secondary Schools with Planning and Analysis tools such as SWOT Analysis and its applications to real-life scenario which undoubtedly will lead to efficient and effective service delivery in our schools”.
He made this remark at the opening ceremony which was held at Peoples Resort, Abakaliki on Monday 16th December, 2019.
He intimated the audience of NIEPA’s giant capacity building strides in the education sector in the year 2019, stating that the Institute had trained over 5,000 education planners and managers cutting across various spectrum of the education sector.
While commending UBEC and Ebonyi SUBEB for patronizing NIEPA for the training of JSS Principals, he enjoined UBEC to further patronize the Institute for the manpower development needs of other SUBEBs.
The participants were taken through topics such as effective school management techniques, school climate culture and organizational change, decision making process, school discipline, leadership and communication process, school facilities and plant management practices, school records and record keeping and education law.”
A remarkable feature of the training programme was the administering of pre and post-tests as assessment tools for measuring the preparedness and performance of the principals.
Ebonyi state Commissioner of Education, Prof. Oyebuchi Chima who supervised the exercise alongside the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Education, Mrs. Chizoke, applauded the test application initiative, adding that it will serve as a means of measuring how much the principals have improved in the course of the training. The commissioner added that the pre/post-test can be used as a valuable diagnostic tool for more effective teaching.
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