A KEY NOTE ADDRESS PRESENTED AT THE FIRST EVER TEACHERS’ WORKSHOP/SEMINAR, THIS DAY 13TH MAY, 2015.

My beloved Reverend Fathers of our great college,

The Resource Persons of today’s workshop: Dr. Mrs. E. Okafor and Barr. A.C. Assimonye.

My esteemed members of the Academic  Staff,

Ladies and Gentlemen.

I am most pleased to welcome you all to this very crucial academic exercise taking place perhaps for the first time, in the history of this college. I am particularly happy to observe that today’s workshop is a dream come true since it was conceived and initially arranged to take place during the first term of the academic year. This is why today is remarkably different and significant in its own unique way as it marks a new dawn in the academic life and activities of the college. It is my earnest prayer and wish too, that this exercise be organized regularly in order to ensure that our teachers are properly and sufficiently well equipped in their teaching activities. The theme of this workshop is simply put in two words: EFFECTIVE TEACHING. It is designed to refresh the minds of the participants with the necessary and right ingredients for effective teaching and learning exercises to take place in the classrooms.  The facilitators will among other salient educational issues, enlighten us more on the qualities of a good teacher as well as the generally accepted method of preparing lesson plan.

Permit me at this juncture, to welcome in a very special way, the resource persons for this workshop. Dr. Mrs.Elizabeth Okafor is the former Dean at Federal College of Education (Technical) Umunze. She is still member of the Federal college governing council and currently on sabbatical at Federal College of Education (Technical) Asaba, Delta State. Barrister A.C. Assimonye is the Teaching Practice Coordinator and HOD Curriculum at the Federal College of Education (Techincal) Umunze. Being lecturers and resource persons from the college of education, already show that they will be speaking with authority. Both of them have been very carefully selected and considered competent to handle today’s exercise. They have been in the teaching profession for years. We are privileged today to have them in our midst and to learn from the wealth of their experiences.  You are most welcome to the college.

I guess the college academic staff should already count themselves blessed and privileged to be participants at this all important exercise. There are so many schools and teachers today both in the private and public domains, but very few have real and qualified teachers who have the right information and orientation, the required disposition and passion for teaching. These underscore the reason for periodic academic exercise as this. I therefore exhort every one of you to maximize this opportunity and with the right disposition, digest the materials coming from our speakers. I have no doubt that if we are given the right information in this exercise and the information is properly internalized and put into practice in our teaching activities, the aim of this workshop would have been achieved since there will definitely be increased positive learning outcomes among our students.

 Once more, I welcome you one and all to this workshop in the college and wish you a gracefilled exercise. Happy listening.

Rev. Fr. Paul Onyebuchi.