The Deputy Head Teacher, Carversham Primary School, Reading, United Kingdom, Charlotte Talbot, on Friday said that Nigerian children are more creative than their counterparts abroad.
She, however, noted that Nigerian pupils should be encouraged to embark on team work, which she said, enhances learning.
The Nigerian children got the commendation when Talbot had a week visitation to Beehive School, Lagos.
The Nigerian school had partnered its UK counterpart with a view to strengthening academic linkage, pupil and teacher exchange and the enhancement of cultural and academic development of the children.
Talbot, who led the UK team to Beehive School, spoke with our correspondent after a week of academic and cultural sojourn in Lagos, which ended on Friday with cultural dance, music and drama in honour of the guests by members of the cultural troupe of the school.
Asked to compare primary education in UK with Nigeria’s, Talbot said the exposure of Nigerian children to vocational aptitude put them ahead of most pupils abroad.
She said, “The environments are very different. England has a very rich culture, but Nigeria’s culture is great. Your children are more creative in different aspects. This may be as a result of the Nigerian culture, but we are also good. Nigerian pupils are much more creative in music and some other things.
“They are taught more of future career, like teaching vocational aptitude. That is something that we don’t do. It protects and guarantees their future. It gives them hope and direction.”
She noted that children should be allowed to work collectively to enhance their communication skills.
Talbot added, “The children must learn to work together, they should be taught how to work in team and pairs to find a solution to a problem. The children here write a lot of things down, they should talk together more and do a lot of things together to prepare them for the future -when they are going to meet a lot of people.
“The fact remains that children need to work together most of the time to learn communication skills. They should not be learning only subjects, they should be learning how to be together and live together to achieve result.”
Also, one of the UK team, who is also a teacher at Carversham Primary School, Emily Dawleins, urged teachers to understudy every pupil in their class so as to know the best teaching approach to adopt to impart them with knowledge.
She said, “Education in Nigeria is quite different from that of England, the subject teachers are different but the way we teach is similar. We have one class teacher rather than the way it is in Nigeria, where they use the subject teacher approach. We teach everything, we have to struggle hard to get along with the subjects. The subject teacher approach is very much better because it builds specialists.”
On the visitation, Head of Administration, Beehive School, Mrs. Adereti Viola, said it was to help the schools upgrade its standard.
“This will help us improve on our standard. We exchange programmes and ideas to develop our methodology. Our interaction with them has been really helpful. They told us how to do certain things and they also learn some from us,” she added.
The school Proprietress, Mrs. Latifah Dosunmu, added that the partnership would also expose the pupils and their teachers to global best practices in education delivery at the basic education level.
November 11, 2012 by Sodiq Oyeleke
Written by NEWSTRAWL ONLINE UPDATE
Sodiq Oyeleke is a Media, Human Resources, Project Management and Public Relations Practitioner
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