In line with its commitment to Nigeria’s socio-economic development, Nigerian Breweries Felix Ohiwerei Education Trust Fund has fulfilled its promise and sponsored five past winners of the Maltina Teacher of the Year Competition to Tampere, Finland, for capacity development training.
The past winners include Olasunkanmi Opeifa, Olubunmi Anani, Abanika Taiye, Alaku Ayiwulu, and Adeola Adefemi.
The capacity development training, which was held between Monday, May 20, 2024, and Thursday, May 30, 2024, is part of the prize for the competition winners. The teachers were taken through different modules of practical-based teaching skills.
Speaking on the training, the Chairman of Nigerian Breweries Felix Ohiwerei Education Trust Fund, Mr. Hans Essaadi, explained that the training was organised to expose the teachers to productive teaching methods that positively impact society.
Essaadi stated that the programme is designed to upskill and maximise the teachers’ capacity to enable them to deliver effectively in a way that would impact and improve students’ performances.
In their remarks, the past competition winners expressed profound appreciation to the management of Nigerian Breweries-Felix Ohiwerei Education Trust Fund for making the opportunity a big reality. They described the experience as an eye-opener, which has further enhanced their skills not only in teaching but also in leadership.
The 2023 winner of the competition, Adeola Adefemi, stated that the training has been comprehensive and fulfilling with a pledge to deploy her experience for the transformation of the future of education in Nigeria.
Sharing the same sentiment, Alaku Ayiwulu, the Maltina Teacher of the Year 2022, praised the capacity-building training as a truly transformative exercise that offered him firsthand experience on different approaches to learning as well as the significance of student-centred collaboration.
In his view, Abanika Taiye, the 2021 winner, described the experience as one that creates a conscious and consistent practice of collaborative and cooperative learning. On her part, Olubunmi Anani, who won the competition in 2020, expressed the differences in Nigerian and Finnish education, stating that while the former is focused on rote learning, the latter emphasises equipping students with the wherewithal to become independent thinkers, creative doers, and innovative contributors.
Olasunkanmi Opeifa, the 2019 winner of the competition, explained that the experience throughout the capacity training has been illuminating. Opeifa believes that Finland’s education structure is worth adopting, considering the emphasis placed on trust, autonomy, creativity, and collaboration.
Citing his readiness to domesticate the experience by applying it not only in the area of leadership but also in pedagogy, he stated that the Nigerian educational system has a lot to learn from its Finnish counterpart.
The Maltina Teacher of the Year Competition was established in 2015 and funded through the Nigerian Breweries-Felix Ohiwerei Education Trust Fund, which was set up in 1994 to facilitate an active contribution to the development of the education sector in Nigeria in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal, SDG No.4.
