Although accurate data have not been obtained for the argument of this paragraph, I can rely on an arguably representative sample of evidence obtainable across my teaching experience as a teacher-educator in three different universities, the University of Lagos and Lagos State University inclusive. I, for several years taught, alongside one or two of my colleagues, graduating classes of more than one thousand students in some of these universities. In order to strengthen the reliability of this line of argument, I contacted a few of my colleagues who are custodians of student data, in those universities and several public universities across the country, to have an idea of the pattern of students graduation from Faculties of Education, with regard to population of qualified teachers. Consequently, a reliable quality of quantitative data was tentatively collected and one can safely state that in the last 10 years, more than 50,000 qualified teachers are produced every year in Nigerian Faculties of Education. Although these data are not accurate having been collected in an unsystematic fashion, they suggest the continuing preparation of more teachers than available teaching positions.
Accordingly, it may not be true altogether to claim that there is a “chronic shortage of qualified teachers” unless President Muhammadu Buhari convinces the citizenry that all the qualified teachers in the country have been employed and there are still vacant teaching positions. It may not be out of place to reveal here that during the December 2015 festive time, many of my former students contacted me on phone and others, on social media. “What are you doing now?” This was part of my questions to each of them. “I am still searching for job, Sir”, was a common denominator in their responses at least, for five of every 10. More pathetic is the fact that some of them are among the most brilliant scholars of their days and one wonders why they must be allowed to waste away, in spite of their possession of all the laudable trappings of qualified teachers.
Mr. President, Sir, out there is a conglomeration of well-trained and qualified but unemployed teachers. So, if you are seeking to employ teachers for our schools, kindly let us focus on them and not on the generality of the unemployed graduates in the country. Those ones deserve a different kind of attention. Let the unemployed accountant, engineer, lawyer, or chemist not be lumped with the unemployed qualified teachers, in the same basket. Now, answers to the guiding questions posed earlier: One, there are more qualified teachers than there are available teaching positions.
Two, there is only a shortage of qualified teachers who are willing to accept the available teaching positions on certain conditions. The implication of this is that the government failed to make teaching attractive to some of these qualified teachers which is why some operate in non-teaching sectors. Details of this are beyond the focus of the present article. Three, there seems to be a misconception of the idea of “qualified teachers.
With regard to the Federal Government’s idea of addressing the “chronic shortage of teachers” by “partnering state and local governments to recruit, train and deploy 500,000 teachers”, there is nothing condemnable in partnering governments at other levels for any possible ameliorative intervention. However, the Federal Government may need to determine the recruitment criteria of the qualified teachers in order to ensure uniformity and standardised employment for quality assurance. For instance, they must all be one, graduates of education, two, passed a competency test on their subject of teaching and three possess some ethical and personal characteristics required of classroom teachers. There must be careful monitoring in order to discourage possible clannish sentiments to seek to prefer a substandard local indigene to a qualified cosmopolitan citizen. There has always been the despicable idea of zoning in employment slots and this has gone a long way in marring standards and watering down quality. The criteria involved must be high. Let no one reduce the standard to make way for mediocre graduates and substandard scholars.
If a graduate is not good enough for other sectors, he or she can’t be good enough for the teaching profession. It may be a welcome idea for the intervention to be a Federal Government project. This way, the government may deploy the recruited qualified teachers to work in various parts of the country on an attractive package. This does not rule out the possibility of partnering state and local authorities that may only be accorded some restricted measure of control over the project. The idea being articulated here may be subjected to further examination.
However, it should be noted that all the President need do is to enhance the carrying capacities of Faculties and Colleges of Education with Universities of Education being actively involved. The real partners in this intervention should be teacher trainers as professional education faculties.
The President identified “unemployed graduates and NCE holders” as possible manpower for his ameliorative intervention. Let it be noted that these are two different classes of individuals and are meant for different settings. This clarification is due owing to the fact that the President, later in his speech, described the two categories as “graduate teachers” who would be “deployed to primary schools to ‘enhance the provision of basic education especially in our rural areas”. Now, there is a technicality here. Graduate teachers are prepared to implement Secondary School Curricula the lower arm of which now covers Basics 7 to 9.
What used to be Primary Level is now characterised as Basics 1 to 6. Graduate teachers, as targeted by the President in his budget, may not be the appropriate manpower to be “deployed to primary schools” for curriculum implementation. They, if trained well, are rather prepared for post-Basic 6 while the NCE holders, if trained well, are the appropriate set of teachers for Basics 1-6. I shall soon discuss the implication of teaching at primary level, elsewhere. For now, we are beginning to see the danger in the policy inconsistency that dubiously characterises leadership in Nigeria. We are also beginning to feel the implication of careless, insensitive, uninformed and indiscriminate importation of foreign educational principles and practices into Nigeria without adequate screening. We are currently faced with the danger of embracing alternate teacher preparation, as hinted by the President in his budget presentation.
One is concerned that Nigeria may remain a dumping ground for all the Western-oriented educational policies that failed and turned scandalous at inception. Our President is commendably getting it right and undoubtedly deserves plaudits. But his educational ideas seem less than accurate. There was an earlier presidential gaffe concerning the introduction of patriotism education.
There also was a conceptual inexactitude over the possible implementation of leadership education. Here we are again set to commit the educational welfare of our children to the unprofessional hands of unqualified, substandard and hurriedly prepared teachers, which is portentous of a calamitous outcome!
- Concluded
- PUNCH
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