Twelve Join Enabling Writers’ Project
On March 13, the Enabling Writers’ Projects (EWP) entered its second training phase with 12 selected writers representing Federal and state higher institutions from five Northern states.
More than 20 writers from seven states took part in the first phase.
The book-writing initiative is a joint sponsorship of USAID, World Vision, and the Australian government through the All Children Reading Grand Challenge for Development. It seeks to foster literacy. This is an international project going on in different parts of the world, and AUN is one of only six institutions worldwide to receive recognition and support for this effort.
EWP Curricular Advisor, Dr. Grace Malgwi of SAS, said the selection of the 12 reflected the writers’ outputs at the first training. They were then tasked to write 200 books for Primary One & Two early graders using the Bloom book-writing software. She noted that by the end of the weeklong workshop the writers would produce at least 64 books in Hausa.
On the importance of books in the mother tongue, Dr. Malgwi explained that research has shown that literacy can be easily transferred from one language to another.
“AUN has been tasked to produce early grade readers for Nigeria and Cameroon. Hausa was considered a language of wider communication and we are partnering with the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC).”
Director of the Writing Center, Ms. Emilienne Akpan, facilitated a session on basic story writing and guidelines, while Assistant Director Information Systems, Nasiru Yakubu, revised the Bloom book-writing application basics with participants.
A participant at the workshop, Hussaini Adamu, Head, Hausa Department, Federal College of Education, Yola, observed that the training was timely as he plans to liaise with local education authorities to produce materials for primary school teachers.
“I will pass this training to the lecturers in my department who will further train primary school teachers.”
By Nelly Ating
