NBTE, Commonwealth Of Learning Signs MoU On Technical/Vocational Education

National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) has signed an agreement with the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) to support and strengthen TVET training through the design and development of Open Educational Resources (OER) courseware.

A statement issued by the NBTE’s Head of Media, Mrs Fatima Abubakar said, the collaboration was being done to facilitate blended learning across Nigerian Polytechnics and related institutions.

The statement read that, to kick-start this project, NBTE has set up a Technical Team to design and develop 13 Open Educational Resource (OER) courseware for Competency Based Training and Assessment (CBETA) using the Open, Distance and Flexible e-Learning (ODFeL) approaches.

“In the project, 33 ICT support staff will be trained in Moodle Administration to provide technical and multimedia support to the course design, development, quality assurance and delivery teams.

According to the statement, “Institutions granted approval to run the ODFeL are expected to select 66 participants to design and develop the 13 OER courseware. Furthermore, 99 lecturers will be trained as assessors, internal verifiers, and external verifiers of the 13 OER courseware using ODL methods from ODFeL approved institutions.

“At the end of the training, four hundred and twenty-nine (429) lecturers will be trained on blended TVET delivery using COL’s OER courses which include, among others, Introduction to Blended TVET, Essential Skills for TVET, Facilitating Online Courses, and Blended Learning in the Classroom.

“CoL, being a creation by the Commonwealth Heads of Government to encourage the development and sharing of open learning/distance education knowledge, resources and technologies, is partnering with NBTE to improve the capacity of both NBTE staff and Lecturers in Polytechnics”.

She said the first meeting was held virtually between the NBTE led by the Executive Secretary (ES) and CoL led by Mr Robert Okinda to kick start the collaboration.