FG Seek British Council Support on Recruitment of 500,000 Teachers

Minister for Information, Alhaji Lai Mohammed
Nigeria seeks support from United Kingdom in the training of 500,000 teachers to be employed by the Federal Government. Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, who reported this in Abuja at a reception in honour of the Chief Executive, British Council, Sir. Ciaran Devane, said the training would be centred on technical support and building the capacity of teachers from the U.K.’s wealth of experience in the education sector.Lai Mohammed also explained that part of their discussion was for the council to assist Nigeria in capacity building for the creative industry and changing the negative narratives about Nigeria in U.K. and other European countries.

Mohammed said, ‘‘We have earlier sought the cooperation of the British Council on recruitment of 500,000 teachers which has had experience on this in training teachers because one of the things the council offers is capacity building in these areas. He stated that the partnership is an ongoing one, he also had opportunities in meeting with the country director of British Council about two months ago and they both agreed on the necessity to grow the local creative industry and the council offer to help out in the capacity building for sector.

Devane said the British Council was particularly interested in exploring every possible area of collaboration to assist Nigerians going out of school population in the country.

He also added, I am leading a delegation to Nigeria from the British Council and UK parliament involving journalist as well and Vice Chancellors of a leading UK universities. We are here in Nigeria to look at collaborations British Council has with Nigeria in culture sector, education sector, security and education .

We want to see what is going on and what we can learn from you which we can carry to other parts of the world. But going forward, we need to think of what is good for modern Nigeria in some ways. We need to think through how we can work through the education system, which is growing rapidly, and training the 500, 000 teachers the government plans to hire. We will be doing more, making new things like Lagos Festival.

Devane described Nigeria as one of the most important countries to the British Government, which cannot be ignored due to its potentials, saying that the bond between the two countries have grown stronger over the years.

”For me, Nigeria is one of the most important countries in the world to the British Government, the bigger and fastest growing economy in Africa. Nigeria is going to be one of the powerful drivers of economy in the future. For me the connection is getting stronger, the significance of Nigeria will only grow stronger as well,’’Devane said.

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