The National Commission for Nomadic Education (NCNE) says it will soon begin learning-by-radio for the nomadic people in the country.
Dr. Fidelis Idoko, Director, Social Mobilisation and Women Development of the commission, disclosed this in Gombe on Tuesday when he paid a courtesy call on the Chairman, Gombe State Universal Basic Education (SUBEB).
NCNE officials were in the state to administer questionnaire to the nomads, so that by their response they would know the time that is appropriate for educational programme for them.
He said the commission acquired an Amplitude Modulation (AM) licence from the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) in 2017 in order to set up a radio station.
“We now have Zamani International Radio and will come on air in no distant time.
“We have been using Radio Nigeria since 1976 and has consistently produced programmes for the nomads.
“We have realised that radio has impacted so much in the lives of the nomads, through the radio, they were educated on the importance of census and their other civic rights, exclusive breast feeding, child immunisation, among other major issues.
“Now we want to scale up to learning by radio and we are optimistic that it would positively impact on the target group.
“We have produced 30 radio lessons for Primary One which we called Radio School, we have packaged and developed an interactive radio programme ,” he said.
According to him, the radio programme will not in any way replace the pupil-and-teacher interface but complement it.
“We want the nomads wherever they are to be learning, because reaching them physically will not be possible because we lack the funds to go to every nook and cranny.
“Also, we have challenges when it comes to the issue of manpower that will cover all the schools.
“State and local councils are the employers of teachers, they are saddled with the responsibility of recruiting and posting teachers, “ he explained.
He lamented that one of the challenges they were facing was the transfer of teachers that were trained by the commission to regular schools.
“We want to appeal to the board to retain trained teachers in the schools instead of posting them out to regular schools,” he said.
In his response, Mr Babaji Babadidi, Chairman, SUBEB Gombe, thanked the commission for the visit and for going round the 291 nomadic schools in the state.
“We hope your monitoring will open another door for the state to immensely benefit from your allocations as the state needed more support from the commission in providing additional class rooms and instructional materials,” he said.
According to him, the state government from 2019 to date has spent N900 million for the construction of collapsible tents, furniture, instructional materials, among other things.
He said since the creation of the state in 1996 no government had invested such amount of money in that area.
The chairman said the board would soon place an embargo on the transfer of teachers in nomadic schools. (NAN)