My name is Abdurrahman Umar. I was an Education Specialist - Teacher Education at the Commonwealth of Learning. I have been closely associated with TESSA ( with Bob Moon) and currently supporting the National Teachers' Institute Kaduna (NTI) to develop and an implement the Green Teacher Programme.
The objectives of the Green Teacher programme are:
1. To enable student teachers acquire knowledge and information about basic plant and animal ecology and the current national, regional and global environmental issues and problems;
2. To enable them have an adequate and holistic understanding of the environment and its problems and how human activity is impacting on it.
3. To provide learning experiences to the them that will foster positive attitudes and values about the total environment and motivate them to act individually or in groups to protect and improve the environment; and
4. To develop the student teachers’ skills for identifying and studying environmental issues and problems and the proper action to take to address them effectively.
The programme has so far focused on enhancing the capacity of NTI staff on developing materials for Environmental Education for Teachers and developing materials that will be delivered in the ODL mode. I work with a team of 30 core NTI Green Teacher staff and two consultants Shivani Jain and Pandya Parthesh from India.
The GT team at NTI has developed four draft modules for the Green Teacher programme that are being reviewed, revised and enhanced with help from Shivani and Pandya. We hope to finalise the modules by mid-March 2018.