By Mariam Williams
The Gambia Teachers Union (GTU) recently rounded off a three-day Information and Communications Technology (ICT) training for 26 teachers drawn from various schools across the country.
Held at YMCA along the MDI Road in Kanifing, the trainers took the gathered teachers through topics such as: Basic Microsoft word, Microsoft excel, powerpoint, spreadsheet, electronic communication based on privacy of the Internet, how to detect fake news and fake websites and research, as well as online freelancing.
Ms. Oumie Kujabi, an IT Training Manager, described ICT as very important, reasoning that it plays a big role in the work of teachers, especially now that people are in a modern world with the classroom also changing, with everything being digitalized.
She believed when teachers know about ICT, they would be able to transmit it into their teaching profession and also impart it to their students.
Kujabi observed that some people would go up to university level without any knowledge of ICT, and therefore struggle with their assignments.
The ITC Training Manager enjoined the participants to utilize what they have gathered at the training, when they return to their respective schools.
Kujabi also challenged the Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education to conduct more of such training programmes, especially for junior and primary school teachers, describing them as “the foundation”.
Inspired by the training, Mr. Aboubacarr Camara, a participant and teacher at Kotu Senior Secondary School, has already made up his mind, as he vowed to join one of the Training Institutes in the country to further what they were taught.
Camara held that henceforth, when they give test or examinations to their students, they could easily go back to excel and calculate their totals.
He saluted the organizers for given them opportunity to partake in the training, while urging his colleagues to practicalize what they have learnt, in order to help themselves and their students, in future.
Another participant, Madam Leeza Jammeh who is a teacher at St. Joseph Senior Secondary School, admitted that her IT skills “were very basic” before the training. However, after participating in the three days training on ICT, her skills had now improved a lot, as she indicated.
As the world is moving from manual to digital, Teacher Jammeh said the training has equipped them to be able to input their grades and analyse what students have done.
