Delta State Commissioner for Basic and Secondary Education, Mr. Patrick Ukah, has said that the year 2020 is a very unique and extraordinary year, especially for the education sector, as Covid-19 pandemic posed challenges in various many ways to the already constrained educational system.
Mr. Ukah, who stated this in his goodwill message on the occasion of the 2020 World Teachers Day Celebration on Monday 5th October, 2020, thanked the almighty God for sparing the lives of the teachers to witness this year’s celebration given the global Covid-19 pandemic.
On behalf of the ministry, he felicitated and congratulated all Teachers, especially those in Delta State, who he described as his co-labourers in the education sector.
Mr. Ukah recalled that as soon as schools were abruptly closed down in March 2020, Teachers were tasked with exploring new ways of teaching and reaching the learners at home.
He noted that the ‘new-normal reality’ challenged the old ways of teaching and learning and teachers were to adopt new methods to ensure that learning continues even in situations of deficient, decay or lack of infrastructure and unpreparedness.
The Basic and Secondary Education Commissioner expressed happiness that their collective leadership, creativity, innovation and dedication to duty helped provide the solutions to the continuity of the education system, adding that his ministry introduced the “Delta Telclass”; an open, long-distance learning programme via television, radio, and social media broadcast of lessons amongst other initiatives.
He thanked the Teachers for demonstrating leadership in crisis time; an action that is related to the theme of this year’s Teachers day, “Teachers: Leading In Crisis, Reimaging The future”; which he described as apt to the present situation and calls for a deeper reflection on the challenges that Teachers are confronted with in the educational environment of post Covid-19 pandemic.
Mr. Ukah stated that the large scale psychological, socio-economic and educational disruptions occasioned by the Covid -19 will require a concerted effort to remedying the dysfunctionality with a special emphasises on building the Teacher of the future, stressing that this will mean a rethinking and redefinition of the roles of Teachers as game-changers in a changing world.
The celebration in the state was scaled down due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
