•The huge response to job schemes must be carefully handled
As might be expected in job-deficient Nigeria, there has been a tremendous response to the Federal Government’s laudable job-creation scheme tagged N-Power Teach. Offering some 500,000 young unemployed graduates teaching, instructional and advisory roles in educational, agricultural, health and civic institutions, the initiative’s portal recorded 403,528 registrants within 36 hours of its launch. Within a week, its website had recorded 35 million hits.
Such an enthusiastic response is indicative of two things: the depth of the country’s unemployment problem and the desire of young citizens for productive work. The N-Power initiative must be handled carefully if it is to ensure that these burning issues are successfully resolved.
Perhaps the most important thing is never to lose sight of the fact that N-Power Teach is an emergency intervention. As such, it is meant to offer a temporary solution – a Teacher Corps – to the widely-acknowledged problem of personnel scarcity in the education sector. Many of the applicants are not trained teachers, but will be trained in the basics of their envisaged roles.
For it to be effective, such training must build upon the inherent abilities of those selected for participation in the initiative. This would be much easier if priority is given to applicants with education qualifications, as the learning curve would be shorter and the training more effective.
Another useful tactic would be to draw upon the successes and shortcomings of similar programmes. Although it was not as ambitious as N-Power Teach, the Federal Teachers’ Scheme (FTS) had comparable objectives. Teachers were employed by the Universal Basic Education Commission for two years on allowances of N10,000 per month. The scheme’s success was mixed, with some teachers not reporting to their assigned schools, and about 1,500 being owed several months’ allowances long after they were disengaged in 2013.
N-Power Teach must ensure that it does not follow this dubious path. Fortunately, its funding has been included in the N500 billion set aside for the Federal Government’s social intervention programmes in the 2016 national budget. It is crucial, however, that the money reaches those it was intended for, on time and in full.
In addition, the Teacher Corps must be integrated into Nigeria’s long-term teacher recruitment plans. If the participants have no assurance that they will not be simply thrown into the job market after the expiration of their two-year contract, it is unlikely that they will give their best to the scheme.
One way around this would be to carry out a comprehensive survey of the nation’s personnel requirements in primary and secondary education. Accurate statistics on the teacher deficit in Nigeria, state by state, could enable a smooth transition from the Teacher Corps to public and private schools across the country. However, such a strategy would require a resolution of the non-payment of teachers’ salaries in many states.
Indeed, the success of N-Power Teach is tied to comprehensive reforms in primary and secondary school education in the country. There is no reason why the scheme cannot trigger increased interest in teaching as a profession, with all the concomitant benefits that would portend for Nigeria as a nation. The United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) estimates that 45 per cent of the country’s population is under 15 years of age, and 4.7 million children are not in school, one of the highest proportions in the world. Teachers are a critical resource in high demand; making the profession more attractive would help to meet those needs.
N-Power Teach is an innovative attempt to simultaneously confront the unemployment challenge and the paucity of personnel in vital areas of human endeavour. If it is able to record an appreciable measure of success, it might serve as a welcome template for similar interventions in other areas of national life.
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