United States-based Power Education Foundation (PEF), a non-profit organisation dedicated to promoting early childhood education in Africa, is sponsoring a two-day training workshop for about 200 nursery school teachers in two local governments of Abia State.

The children’s teachers from Isiala Ngwa North and Isiala Ngwa South will converge at the Women Education Hall at the Okpuala Ngwa Secretariat of Isiala Ngwa North Local Government Area, venue of the two-day workshop on Wednesday, August 15 and Thursday, August 16, 2012, to hone their skills.

President of PEF, Azubike Aliche, in a statement made available to Transport & Business Express, said that a team of experts from Alvan Ikoku College of Education, Owerri, led by Dr. Jude Manu Opara, Acting Head of Early Childhood Education Department of the college, will serve as the main resource person and facilitator for the workshops.

Aliche said participants are drawn from private and public nursery schools while the workshop is being coordinated by Mike Nwanguma on a volunteer basis.

Citing information from UNICEF in Nigeria that about 85 per cent of teachers in pre-primary early childhood care centres do not possess basic qualifications and that more than half have no formal education, Aliche disclosed that the PEF was organising the workshop as its contribution towards the development of early childhood education in Nigeria.

Aliche owns one of those early childhood centres, the Chiehika Aliche Memorial Early Childhood Education Center (CAMEEC), Osusu, also in Isiala Ngwa North LGA.

“The Power Education Foundation, Corp. is a US non-profit, general-purpose foundation created to provide resources for the development of quality but low cost early childhood education centres in Nigeria,” the PEF President explained.

“The foundation is primarily interested in supporting organisations, projects and programs that meet the basic human needs of the child, including health, nutrition and early childhood education for the poor. The foundation invests in Africa’s youngest children, ages 3 – 6 years,” he added.

Aliche stressed that since PEF is convinced about the benefits of quality early childhood education, the organisation “aims to work with others, including governments, to ensure that every child in Nigeria has access to quality early learning, as a means to succeed in school and in life.”

“The PEF will, essentially, work with existing organisations to meet the minimum standard set by government for early learning centres to operate. This may involve the training or retraining of teaching and auxiliary staff, which the planned workshops are meant to achieve,” he stated.

*Photo: PEF President, Azubike Aliche.