Recent data released by the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN) paint a worrisome picture of the quality of teachers in the nation’s primary and secondary schools. Whereas about 1.5 million teachers are registered with the TRCN, 50 per cent of them lack the competences to deliver 21st Century curriculum requirements. Add that to the disclosure by Malam Adamu Adamu, the Minister of Education, that there is a 1.3 million deficit of teachers in the country which would require six years to fix, and we begin to appreciate the enormity of the challenge.
Some of the challenges have been listed as faulty foundations of teachers’ training and certification processes, poor teaching methods and limited opportunities for continuous teacher development, and the biggest—the poor remuneration and working conditions teachers.
The way policymakers and implementers have carried on in the country makes us wonder if they really understand the importance of quality basic education in the fortunes of a people and nation. For too long now, we have got our priorities wrong. Gone are the days when education and matters that concern teachers were prioritised. Without meaning to romanticise the past, our colonial masters and First Republic leaders did well for education, generally. The nation seemed to have lost focus with the advent of the military in governance and the accompanying over-centralisation of governance.
Since then, matters affecting teachers and the teaching profession have taken the back seat. The teacher’s salary and remuneration, especially at the basic levels, is one of the least anywhere in the world. They are the last to be paid, and when there are shortfalls in earnings as is the case currently, they are the ones who are owed basic entitlements for months on end. They are the last to be considered for any kind of in-service training. The result is that there is a complete loss of prestige for the teacher in the society.
Consequently, the teaching profession is far from being a profession. It is first unable to attract suitably qualified individuals to itself. The majority of those who read education in our universities and other tertiary institutions did not list education as their first course of study. It is, in most cases, a second, or even worse, a last resort. When they graduate to become teachers, they have their eyes elsewhere, leaving them distracted and unable to give their best to their pupils and students. Others who qualify in other fields apart from education, who become teachers, do so because they cannot find other preferred jobs. They are, therefore, not eager to develop themselves along the teaching career path, as they hope to get out of the loathed profession at the first opportunity.
To make matters worse, the opportunities for training and re-training are hardly made available. A primary school teacher could have been in employment for thirty years and never attended any course by whatever name called. The deplorable situation is the same for the average secondary school teacher. So, what does the nation get? Most of our teachers are just so in name. They are out of touch with modern methods and techniques in the profession and are poorly motivated to give their best. The teaching profession has become an all-comers’ affair, making it difficult to regulate practice and professionalism.
As TRCN data clearly show, the teacher deficit is huge, and the resources required to correct them are yet to be properly appreciated. We doubt if they will ever be provided. If we are serious, we should start with the budgetary provision for education. For us to begin to make any realistic dent on the mountain of problems in the education sector, no state, local or the Federal Government should commit less than 20 per cent of its total earnings to it. Then, priority should be accorded the primary and secondary levels. If the foundation is wrong, there is little the higher levels can do. Our recent experiences in this regard should suffice.
Apart from providing the needed physical infrastructure for proper learning, what else matters more than the human resource? The teacher should simply be accorded his pride of place, if we want to optimise our investments in the sector. He is the one factor that brings all of the other components into harmonious play. The avenues for teacher training should be significantly increased and existing ones upgraded. The recruitment of teachers should reward excellence and merit, and access should be universal. The system should reward excellence in teaching outcomes and punish under-achievers.
The amount of new funding required to bring the education sector and teacher training up to par is such that governments at all levels alone cannot afford. This is why the private sector and other international collaborators have to come in. But, government must first set the tone of its own commitment, and critically, provide enabling environment for the sector to flourish.
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