Founding Partner of ESDEV Foundation Africa, who is also the West Africa Lead for Instill Education, Madam Sarah Osei, has challenged the hardworking teachers of Nigeria to lead the crusade towards an ECOWAS Teacher Learning Community – a concept that stands to promote teaching and learning among educators on matters of common interest to enhance skills, competencies, and professional development.
Madam Osei said this at the 2023 Annual Online Conference of Registered Teachers organised under the auspices of the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN,) in partnership with UNESCO and USAID.
The online Conference, under the theme ‘Promoting Community of Practice among Nigerian Teachers for Effective Service Delivery’, was aimed at enhancing teachers’ capacity through the utilization of collaborative partnerships as well as leveraging open access to online platforms. The annual teachers’ Conference recognizes the need to foster collaboration, knowledge sharing, and professional growth among educators leading ultimately, to improvement in teaching practices and learner outcomes.
Addressing the participants, Madam Osei intimated that Nigerian teachers must attune to the fact that improving learner outcomes must also mean the continuous and intentional acquisition of new knowledge and skills in this fast-changing global environment. She said the theme for the 2023 Conference was extremely relevant in that Lifelong Learning and Teacher Community of Practice are mutually rewarding, and therefore must be patronized by every teacher if we are to meet the needs of the 21st-century learner in the context of SDG4.
Lifelong learning approaches, be it formal or informal, personal, or professional are important levers in stimulating cognitive functions and serve as the foundation stones to building communities of practice for professional development. She added that, for learning to be attractive and engaging to sustain attention and interest, especially among adults, its approaches must be continuously refined through additional knowledge and skills acquisition. This is only possible if teachers have the will to continuously learn.
The Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria is the Federal Agency responsible for promoting teacher professionalism by Licensing and Registering teachers; keeping an up-to-date database of teachers; developing and periodically reviewing professional standards and code of ethics, and providing the framework for Continuous Professional Development (CPD).