US Consulate set to sponsor five youths to empower Lagos teachers

Five Nigerian youths are going to be sponsored by the United States Consulate in Lagos to empower a set of Lagos-based Nigerian teachers.

This is through the Carrington Youth Fellowship, an initiative of the  Consulate for the 2018/2019 fellowship year.

The fellows are Hammed Kayode Alabi, Moyosoreoluwa Eleso, Abraham Femi Abraham, Hannah Afia and Toluwanimi Afolayan.

EduCeleb.com reports these young men and women were selected based on a proven passion for social development within their community and on the global scene. They are among the hundreds who applied to be part of various youth fellowships that identify with their passion and provide the necessary support and network to implement projects they are passionate about.

Their selection is not unconnected to their passion about the education sector and they were selected into the Education Team of the Carrington Youth Fellowship Initiative to birth an education development project.

In line with Goal 4 of the Sustainable Development Goals, which is to make quality education accessible and affordable to everyone; the team conducted a research & needs assessment on the current state of education in Nigeria and found a huge opportunity to improve the learning experience of students by closing the knowledge gaps in teachers education in Nigeria.

This coincides with reports released by World Bank correlating poor student learning outcomes with unqualified and unmotivated teachers. In addition, even qualified and motivated teachers are not well empowered and equipped to utilize contemporary pedagogies to improve student leaning outcomes.

Hence, the Education Team created “Teaching Edge” an education development programme that seeks to improve the quality of education in secondary schools in Lagos, Nigeria; by equipping, empowering and creating a support system for teachers.

They will do this by using a multi-pronged approach to development; which includes organizing immersive trainings for low income secondary school teachers, showcasing & awarding outstanding teacher beneficiaries who have put these learnings into practice. The team also seeks to launch an open-source online learning repository for teachers as a means to sustain and scale the impact of the project.

With this project, the team hopes to impact the lives of hundreds of teachers in Lagos; which will have a ripple effect on the learning outcome of thousands of student across various communities in Nigeria.

While the American Consulate in Lagos provides the project team with the financial and technical support, the team looks forward to getting support from various stakeholders in the private and public sector as they set out to make major transformation in the Nigerian education sector.