Centre management locks out NTI lecturers, students in Lagos

Management of AUD Comprehensive School, Okota-Isolo in Lagos today locked out lecturers and students of the National Teachers’ Institute (NTI), who are using the school as a study centre.

“There is a problem with the centre; and no one is allowed to go inside. We all just under the sun. I was making enquiries why we are all outside. It is because of centre fee we are all outside,” one of the students, who pleaded anonymity, told TheNewsGuru.

“The school that is being used is asking for their money. Centre fee is N5,000.00 per person so apparently people have not paid yet but I feel they should have made provisions for the number of students that applied,” the post graduate diploma in education (PGDE) student further stated.

The student later told TheNewsGuru that “apparently NTI made preparations for the whole year” but that “there is a miscommunication between the school and the people organizing the program”.

“The school said they are littering the place, and that NTI should pay extra money monthly for clean-up and cleaning materials,” the student added.

TheNewsGuru gathers that after efforts to resolve the issues failed, NTI officials announced that no classes will hold at the centre until April, hopefully after the issues are resolved.

Meanwhile, the Director-General of NTI, Professor Garba Dahuwa Azare has called for partnership with state governments on teachers training and retraining, so as to improve their professional capacity.

In a statement after flag-off of 2017 Nationwide Capacity-Building Workshop for teachers under the sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) project, the NTI DG said the institute has been tested and trusted in terms of teachers training.

“NTI is ever ready to organize workshops and teacher retraining programmes nationwide. The institute has been tested and trusted and proved to be capable over the years.

“We are equally appealing to the executive Governors of the States of the Federation to come forward to the institute to forge strong partnership for the training and retraining of their teachers at an affordable cost,” he said.

TheNewsGuru reports NTI was setup to serve as a distant learning educational institution in order to provide additional means of tackling the challenges facing teachers’ education in Nigeria.

The 2017/2018 session started in February with over 50 students at the AUD Comprehensive School study centre in Lagos state.