GOVERNMENT SECONDARY, KUBWA

The use of technology in teaching and learning in GSS Kubwa is driven out of a high level motivation which resulted from a workshop organized by the Chairman Secondary Education Board for principals and vice principals on capacity building in Federal Civil Service College in Abuja. This specifically was drawn from a remark made by one of the resource persons. According to him, the system of education in Nigeria is drawn back by implementers of education system.
According to him also, the emphasis made by the monitors that things have to be done the way it used to be since independence, is being the reason behind the static state of our education system, rather than accepting innovation.
The resource person hence suggested that the school heads should go back to their respective schools and queue into these modern innovations starting from them.
Innovation in my own words can be defined as new ways of doing things that can bring tangible growth and development to the needs of the immediate environment. If we want to embrace innovation, we have to change our management skills to meet up with the modern trends.
Modern teachers are actually different from teachers of the old. They are digital, hence the need to digitalize everything they need to teach as an ‘old school principal’, you must be ready to queue into accepting younger generations, read books, search for information to update yourself. Subsequently put them into practice Never accept the state of Nigeria as an impediment towards the implementation of innovations. It is never an excuse because you must do it according to your ability.
Such innovations embraced by GSS Kubwa are stated below:
1. Installation of CCTV (Closed Circuit Television) Cameras:
CCTV cameras have been installed in various strategic points in the school helping to monitor and track activities of students, teachers, etc around the school. This is surely a strong security measure.
The CCTV Camera is backed with 7.5KVA generator purchased by the school, as well as solar panels and inverters for effective and constant power supply enabling the system work and function efficiently.
2. Automated Bell System:
An automated bell system has been installed in the school to notify change of lessons and time for important school activities in the school programme. Through the automated bell system (speaker), information can be passed to staff and students in the school environment directly from the principal’s desk.
This automated bell system has gradually replaced the use of manual bell used formerly in the school notifying change of lesson. This automated system also uses the power generated through the solar panel and 7.5KVA generator purchased by the school.
3. Multimedia Projectors
The school purchased four (4) multimedia projectors to be installed in all the laboratories (Chemistry, Physics and Biology
laboratories) as well as the technical drawing studio. A standby generator is already fixed in the laboratories to supply power needed by the projectors.
The projectors are android configured and possess the basic facilities used by the computer system to access the internet. About two WIFI devices are already provided to aid this process.
The teachers can use the projectors as audio-visual aid for teaching and learning process. The teachers as well can access google to search for necessary and related diagrams and pictures needed for teaching the students.
4. Biometric Attendance
This biometric attendance is currently undergoing a pilot test. The students’ basic information are being captured. With this biometric attendance, the parents are notified when their wards/children arrive school and when they exit the school environment, through a means of thumb printing. The intention is to modernize the use of hard copy attendance register and also helps to track the movement of the child in and out of the school.
5. Use of computer to prepare lesson plan
Some teachers already have commenced this process. Some in business department and ICT department. This makes their work easier and more accessible.
6. Professional Learning Community
Introduction of professional Learning Community in GSS Kubwa was mandated because of some teachers who are weak in some topics related to their subject areas. This innovation has helped carry them along.
The Professional Learning community was introduced by a group of educational experts in the United States in the 1960s but came into full implementation in the 80s and 90s. However, we must not necessarily do it their own way. Hence we have to put it into practice the way it will suit our immediate environment. The teachers teaching the same classes and their different arms come together to deliberate on the topic, same entry behaviour and same evaluation, with the aim of achieving common goals.
That single lesson plan prepared by that group of teachers will now stand as a document type- written and serve as a guide to the teachers concerned. At the end, they all have the same goal, same note and same evaluation techniques.
In Government Secondary School Kubwa, we have over twenty five (25) different professional learning communities and lesson notes are prepared in groups. This has gone a long way in helping the weaker ones because the main and basic objective is to achieve a common goal.
Because we have succeeded in the full implementation of Professional Learning Community in the school, we will now fully queue into flip learning programme that is geared towards preparing a child to the real contact in the classroom by using an app. This however may seem difficult, but we must accept it and start from somewhere. With this, students can have access to their teachers’ lesson topics at home using their parents’ internet device or phone. Some of these lesson topics are the ones yet to be taught. This is what I refer to as “contact before contact”. Subsequently, the teacher can then evaluate and guide the students on that. Teachers can now upload their lessons online where they can make monetary gain from such act.