NiMet Regional Training Centre gets WMO Accreditation
Oru Leonatd
The Regional Training Centre (RTC) of the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet) in Oshodi has received full re-accreditation of its training programs by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The confirmation was relayed in a report presented during the WMO Executive Council (EC-71) holding currently in Geneva, Switzerland.
The report also indicates that it is only the RTCs in Nigeria and Kenya that achieved this full re-accreditation status by the WMO so far in Africa.The aim of the review process was to support the RTCs in providing high quality training programs that will contribute to meeting regional training needs. The main focus of the external review was on how the WMO RTC is meeting regional/international training needs. The review examines the quality of the education and training based on the established criteria for WMO RTCs, and also on the derived benefits (i.e., benefits derived by the students, trends in student’s achievements following completion), physical infrastructure and materials needed for conducive learning environment and quantity of output.
The DG/CEO NiMet, Professor Sani Abubakar Mashi, who was also recently re-elected as member of the WMO Executive Council during the WMO Congress last week revealed that, as part of the Agency’s statutory responsibility, it has the mandate to train and undertake research in the field of tropical meteorology, agricultural, hydro, aeronautical and marine meteorology. Consequently, the Agency sought for and obtained the approval, commitment and support of the immediate past Minister of State, Aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika, to carryout overhaul of the necessary facilities needed to meet up with the requirements of the re-accreditation exercise.
Training in NiMet, formerly the Nigerian Department of Meteorological Services, dated back to the 1950s when the National Meteorological Training School, Oshodi had been training Job-Entry Meteorological Technicians. In pursuance of the World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) plan for the development of Meteorological Training in Africa, a Regional Meteorological Training Centre was established in Ikeja, Lagos in 1964 to train Medium level Meteorological Technicians and Senior Meteorological Technicians. In 1975, the Regional Meteorological Training Centre and the Meteorological Training School were merged to form the present Regional Training Centre (RTC).
The Regional Training Centre provides training to support the activities of NiMet to boost the professional manpower resources of the Agency. In addition, training is provided to personnel from various MDAs, Institutions and Companies within Nigeria as well as personnel from National Meteorological Services of West Africa and other Countries principally, Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Gambia, Cameroun, Botswana, Zambia, Malawi, Guinea, Tanzania, Lesotho and Kenya.
The training of MDAs personnel by the NiMet’s RTC on the impact of weather and climate related challenges especially in the face of climate change and its resulting extreme events, would support human resources development to produce the needed specialized manpower to drive the application of meteorology to socio-economic development for the wellbeing of the people of the country in particular and African region in general.
