Savana Signatures realises that the development and progress of education and the North in particular will be much swifter when the capacity building of the minds of the teachers becomes the fundamental resource.
It was in fulfillment of this dream that Savana Signatures in partnership with the Community Outreach programme of the Radboud University in the Netherlands organised a three week capacity building training programme on Basic ICT for 20 selected head teachers from Tamale the Metropolis. The Training was conducted at the Savana Signatures ICT Centre in Tamale.
The head teachers who had little to no experience at all with a computer were taken through, basic mouse movement, basic Typing Skills, basic ICT knowledge about hardware and software, Microsoft Office Word 2007 (Basic), Microsoft Office Excel 2007 (Basic), Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007 (Basic) and the Internet use.
The three weeks training which was practically oriented gave the head teachers the opportunity to have a feel of how the incorporation of ICT into their school administration can improve upon teaching and learning and eventually translate into good academic performance of students. The trainees acknowledged that with Microsoft excel the computing of students’ marks and the balancing of school accounts will be much easier and more convenient. The heads were also impressed by the fact that with the internet they could have access to a pool of knowledge at virtually no cost while at the same time saving time and energy.
Most of the teachers in their testimonies said that the three weeks has demystified the computer for them because hitherto, they saw the computer as a complex and expensive machine that can not be handled by anybody except an expert. They however urged Savsign to, in the future, extend the duration of the training to four weeks or more to enable them catch up.
At the end of the training, participants were awarded certificates and a manual containing the training materials and some exercises. The Director for Savana Signatures, Mr. John Stephen Agbenyo, thanked the teachers for the commitment throughout the course and admonished them to continue to build their capacities in ICT as a way of improving their lot and that of their schools. Mr. Agbenyo also used the occasion to thank the Tamale Metropolitan Education office for their support in providing the teachers for the training and did not forget to thank the trainers, Robbin Janssen and Iris van Kesteren for their patience in taking the teachers through the training and for helping SavSign to achieve one of its core objectives of building the capacities of stakeholders in education.
The trainers, Robbin Janssen and Iris van Kesteren, from the Radboud University, on their part were very thrilled about the progress that was made by the heads within the three weeks of training and urged them not to rest on the knowledge they had acquired but to constantly put it into practice by using it in their schools as a way of keeping track of the knowledge.
The following video link sums up the above report
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cy1Z-ktQTB8
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