The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Competency

  • Parable of Nasir El-Rufai’s competency test

    Governor Nasir El-Rufai is a man of the gallery. Oftentimes he becomes spectacle to his tailored audience, an assemblage of haters and sycophants peopling his courtier and political courtesan class. El-Rufai’s recent exploit evokes a fable; a divisive meme of leadership and professionalism.

    The two concepts clash in the arena of El-Rufai. Posturing as the hardnosed disciplinarian, the Kaduna governor butts head with about 22,000 teachers and the Kaduna State chapter of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC).

    The reason is not farfetched. Having watched with dismay as teachers in the state flunked competency tests, the Kaduna governor did the needful by approving the dismissal of affected teachers. Predictably, the diminutive governor’s move generated buzz in the social space as mainstream and new media sensationalised his measure on the wings of protest and articulated vitriol by labour union and political opposition.

    Trust Ayodele Fayose, Governor of Ekiti, to never miss an opportunity to throw darts at perceived shortcomings of colleagues in the All Progressive Congress (APC); Fayose accused the Kaduna governor of sacking teachers with the support of President Muhammadu Buhari.

    “I’m warning Nigerians again, the agenda of the APC is to sack workers. They are sacking teachers in Kaduna and Buhari is supporting them,” he said on Twitter.

    The tweet triggered a debate which saw some in favour but others against Fayose. The latter’s spokesman, Lere Olayinka tweeted: “In Ekiti, we did not conduct competency test for teachers, we still made first position in NECO in 2016 and 2017. El-Rufai can come and learn from us.”

    The Kaduna governor, replied Fayose thus: “Your Excellency Sir, we are not sacking teachers in Kaduna. Rather, we are replacing unqualified people who are unfit to be called teachers to save the future of the next generation.”

    El-Rufai’s retort is instructive. It addresses the conundrum of ‘the next generation.’ Of course, the governor talks a good game and he has done what ex-governor of Ekiti, Kayode Fayemi, attempted to do via his defunct Teachers’ Development Needs Assessment (TDNA).

    Now the minister of mining, Fayemi reportedly helped El-Rufai by introducing him to the consultant that conducted the controversial assessment of Kaduna teachers. The competency tests, which were based on Primary 4 level examinations, were failed by over half of the primary school teachers who sat for it, implying that they are unfit to teach at the foundation level.

    El-Rufai didn’t goof by his latest deed. The Kaduna governor is undoubtedly on good course but among other things, he needs to cushion the adverse effects of his actions by employing qualified replacements for the unqualified teachers.

    He also needs to evolve a process to identify those that could be retrained and re-employed into the teaching service.

    Then El-Rufai has to admit truths related to the reality of Kaduna’s incompetent teachers. The latter, like millions of Nigerian graduates are victims of the incumbent ruling class, to which El-Rufai, sadly belongs.

    El-Rufai in a recent interview admitted thus: ”Unqualified teachers entered the system because the recruitment of teachers was politicised. The local government council chairmen and other senior politicians and bureaucrats saw teaching as a dumping ground for their thugs, supporters and other unqualified persons.

    “Teachers were employed at local government level without adherence to standards. In many instances, no examinations or interviews were conducted to assess the quality of recruits. Political patronage, nepotism and corruption became the yardsticks, thus giving unqualified persons a way in. Teaching jobs were given as patronage to those connected to politicians and bureaucrats.”

    The governor’s admission speaks to the decadence and regression of his ruling class. It echoes the wound-like rawness of Fayemi’s jarring speech to recent graduands of the University of Lagos (UNILAG). Fayemi told the graduands:  “quit whining and start doing — for ourselves and for our country. If something angers you so much, instead of whining, think hard about possible solutions and do something about it.”

    Thus within El-Rufai’s privileged bulk too, lurks a humane realist. But can El-Rufai divorce himself from the insensitivity, sloppiness and entitlement mentality characteristic of Nigeria’s ruling class?

    What has the Kaduna governor done to establish himself as a deviant from Nigeria’s decadent political culture; after all, he was part of the system since the past regime of ex-president, Olusegun Obasanjo.

    The afflictions of Nigeria’s educational system certainly exceeds competency tests and the scourge of bungling primary school teachers. The country’s political machinery and civil service need reforms too.

    At the moment, cult of self dominates Nigeria’s cultural and political landscape. This cult is responsible for plaguing the country with what El-Rufai identified as a culture of “political patronage, nepotism and corruption.”

    It advances what Hedges identifies as the classic traits of psychopaths: superficial charm, lavishness, and utter conceit. El-Rufai’s ruling class is hindered by masturbatory ego, insensitivity to electoral woes, persistent duplicity, and incapacity for remorse.

    It is about time that the Nigerian electorate sacked this ruling class, comprising public officers who educate their wards abroad even as they devastate the nation’s education system by their ineptitude.

    Several governors, senators and traditional rulers educate their children abroad and travel overseas to celebrate their graduation while schools in the country are shut down for over 10 months as in the case of the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH) and the host state’s bungling governor.

    This brings to mind again, the competency test. While some have applauded the move, others have frowned at it. However, President Buhari, on Monday, declared his support for El-Rufai’s replacement of the incompetent teachers.

    To justify the decision to sack the teachers, the state government released some answer scripts from the competency test, revealing how many could not answer questions set for primary four students. The state government lamented that about two-thirds of primary school teachers in the state failed to score up to 75 per cent in the examination.

    This no doubt requires urgent corrective measures. But if subjected to the same test, how many senators, governors and presidential staff would excel unassisted? If El-Rufai and peer are so particular about establishing quality education in Kaduna and neighbouring states, would they kindly extend similar passion to the anti-corruption campaign and establishment of competent leadership across the country?

    There is a joke in public circuits that the country’s incumbent ruling class would fail a 1, 000-word essay on ‘My Politics.’ This joke affirms the gruesome reality of Nigeria’s corrupt, bungling ruling class. Yet they gleefully score cheap points via El-Rufai’s significant measure.

    As you read, El-Rufai’s ruling class afflicts children of the electorate with substandard education while they educate their wards abroad.

    Sound bites and statistics electrify them as fermented grape excites the lust of the habitual drunk. Little wonder they deploy statistics in the same way that Andrew Lang’s drunken man uses lamp-posts – for support rather than illumination.

  • Competency palaver

    •As usual, teachers kick against being tested for competence

    A newspaper headlined the story appropriately: “Shock as 21,780 Kaduna Teachers Fail Primary Four Exams”. It is indeed shocking that primary school teachers who are supposed to teach pupils still could not pass the examination set for some of the pupils they were supposed to be teaching.

    The Kaduna State government was apparently aware of this lack of capacity in the teachers, hence its decision to organise competency test for them. Sadly, about 21,780 of the 33,000 teachers who sat for the test could not meet the 75 percent pass mark. The state governor, Nasir el-Rufai, put the situation in perspective on Monday when he received a delegation of the World Bank: “We tested our 33,000 primary school teachers, we gave them primary four examinations and required they must get at least 75 per cent but I am sad to announce that 66 per cent of them failed to get the requirements.” Even his guests must have been scandalised by the result.

    As the saying goes, “if gold rusts, what will iron do”? If teachers could not pass the examination they were supposed to set for some of their pupils, what then do we expect from the pupils they are teaching? Since no one can give what he does not have, it is quite obvious that this set of teachers cannot produce average pupils not to talk of high fliers.

    Yet, education is the bedrock of nation-building. And primary education is fundamental because it is the foundation on which subsequent teaching and learning is built. If the foundation is weak, then whatever is built on it cannot endure. This is why we agree with Governor el-Rufai that there is need for the injection of fresh and competent blood into the teaching profession in the state. According to him, the government is shopping for about 25,000 of such competent hands to replace the ones that have failed to measure up to expectations.

    The protest by the teachers’ union, the Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT), against the test is understandable. There is nowhere in the country where competency test had been organised for teachers that had gone without hitches. As a matter of fact, the tests had been stonewalled in places like Ekiti and Edo states. In Edo State, the National President of the NUT, Michael Alogba-Olukoya, launched into a long sermon when the state government made its intention to organise the test known; he spoke of the many dimensions of a teacher’s competence. In the present case of Kaduna, the NUT said the test was not in tandem with the country’s laws. In Alogba-Olukoya’s words, “The position of the law as regards supervision of instruction, regulation of teaching and so on lies very squarely with the Teachers’ Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN)”. He wants the state government to follow this process.

    While we have nothing against this, if that is what the law says, we still find it curious that some teachers failed the examinations they would have set for primary four pupils. The same way we felt sorry for the NUT when a teacher began to stammer in 2013 when Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State asked her to read her own age declaration affidavit. We wonder where the TRCN was while all these absurdities were happening.

    But the NUT also made some valid points which the state government and indeed, all governments that recruit teachers must ponder in their determination to improve the standard of education. Recruitment of teachers must be on merit, ditto their promotion. Then teachers should also have the benefit of undergoing training and retraining to keep them abreast of developments in their profession. None of these exist in many states; what we have is a situation where once recruited, the teachers are left to their own devices, irrespective of their length of service.

    Things must change if our teachers are to contribute their quota to national development. Born-teachers of old must be wondering what has happened to a profession that was once held in high esteem in the country.

  • Edo teachers shun competency test

    Secondary school teachers in Edo State on Grade Level 16 yesterday refused to participate in a competency test conducted by the Administrative Staff College of Nigeria (ASCON).

    About 900 teachers and other civil servants were expected to participate, but only about 200 were present.

    Some teachers presented themselves for the examination, but were driven away by the leadership of Academic Staff Union of Secondary Schools (ASUSS).

    The teachers gathered outside Imaguero College, Sapele Road, the venue, protesting the decision to conduct the exam.

    They carried placards, reading: “To become permanent secretary is not by force”, “No training, no exams”, “This is an evil game”, “Let the sun first shine out the already selected”, “There are better ways to make workers productive”, “Our neck cannot be used to test your new trap”.

    Teachers said the explanation by the government that the written test was for promotion to permanent secretary is a booby trap.

    ASUSS Secretary Mr. John Omon Isibor said the title of the letter inviting them for the exam: ‘Invitation to write Competency Test’, made them worry about government’s intention.

    He said competency test was for job seekers, not workers about to retire.

    Isibor said: “We know the implication of competency test. We suspect the government has a hidden agenda.

    “A test is to make sure you are competent. For them to make teachers write the test is to flout a court order that gave an injunction during the Oshiomhole administration stopping the government from conducting competency test for teachers.

    “Secondary school teachers on Level 16 were called to collect the letter. We are here to see the level of compliance. The teachers writing the examination are those that want to become permanent secretaries.”

    In the hall, many teachers were sitting for the examination, even as more persons were indicating interest.

    The Nation learnt some teachers shunned ASUSS’ directives and sat for the exam.

    Addressing reporters after monitoring conduct of the exam, Governor Godwin Obaseki said it was not compulsory for teachers.

    He said it was unfortunate many teachers failed to understand details of the exam.

    Obaseki ruled out promotion for those who did not sit for the exam.

     “It is not a competency test. It is part of strengthening the civil service. The test is part of a promotion exercise. They are already competent. This is why they are in service.

    “What we want to do is to see which area they need to be strengthened. The first one we had was for level 16 and 17 teachers. The examination showed some were good and we used them to fill vacancies of directors and permanent secretaries.

    “The test will be used to help us understand the kind of training and competency we need to build in certain areas of those that are not strong.

    “We are not sacking anybody. We want civil servants to deliver. It is not compulsory. If you want to be promoted, you can write and if you don’t want to be promoted, sit back, don’t write. If you haven’t done the test, there will be no basis to promote you.

    “After the last exercise, two teachers were promoted to permanent secretaries. We are giving everybody opportunity to excel.”

  • Competency test: Monarch hails Oshiomhole

    Competency test: Monarch hails Oshiomhole

    The Otaru of Auchi, Aliru Momoh, has praised the Edo State Governor, Adams Oshiomhole, for cancelling the competency test proposed for public school teachers.

    Speaking at the formal presentation of the winner of a Koranic recitation competition in Jigawa State, the monarch said the move would douse teachers’ tension and fears on what they erroneously thought was a ploy by the government to retrench them.

    Momoh said: “I was happy to hear that the competency test has been cancelled. The teachers are now back. Those who were sacked have been asked to resume work.

    “I thank you for this gesture and God bless you. So I must say that not only Edo State but Nigeria as a whole must be happy about this development.”

    The monrach said the extension of other entitlements to the teachers would increase their productivity.

    “I hope the governor’s gesture would be adequately rewarded by the teachers and their union.”

     

  • 2015 Elections: Competency or sympathy

    2015 Elections: Competency or sympathy

    President Goodluck Jonathan deserved our sympathy to climb to the Presidency in 2010, after the death of President Umaru Yar’Adua. That was understandable, considering the bad-testing cookies from the staple of the late President’s kitchen cabinet, shortly before his death. Again, in 2011, the tale that Jonathan was a shoeless boy from a minority national, in Nigeria, sold like a hot pancake. That again was understandable, as he represented a David, staking against the Goliaths. But as 2015 approaches, I canvass that competency instead of sympathy should be our common guide, in our country’s best interest.

    Indeed if it were possible, the position of the president and the vice should be advertised on the international wire service, as Nigeria desperately needs a competent leader more than ever before. Were it not down to a constitutional requirement, that position ought to be given to any person considered most competent, regardless of his or her nationality. But that will be an anathema, so we have to make do with Nigerians, and luckily there are a handful of competent players. This step is key, to give our best shot, to the intractable crises facing our country, in security, infrastructure, education, and energy among others, after the 2015 presidential election.

    Nigerians going to the 2015 elections must ask themselves, who among the gladiators has the best competence to solve our numerous security challenges. While no doubt, the Boko Haram insurgency, mainly in the north-east is the most arduous task, it is certainly only a part of the problem. There is kidnapping, armed robbery and the cattle herdsmen killing and maiming all across the other zones in the country. While I agree that political and economic mismanagement by the ruling elite constitute a major cause of these problems, it is not correct to seek to pin it, to the northern political opponents of President Jonathan. That argument is a lame blackmail, by the beneficiaries of the Jonathan presidency, sold to the ignorant.

    The Boko Haram insurgency is a greater malaise, than fallout of the political disagreement, between the northern political elites and the Jonathan presidency. As many have correctly argued, the armed insurgency is an attempt by very dangerous international forces, spanning across the Arab countries, the North Africa and now sub-Saharan regions seeking swaths of political empire across these regions. That explains the sophisticated weaponry and financial resources available to these incendiary elements. While many countries across these regions, including now the Central African countries, are really in trouble arising from this insurgency, our own country’s challenge is compounded by decades of incompetent political leadership.

    So, to really attempt to solve our challenge in this respect, we earnestly need very competent hands at the highest level. And the honest question should be, whether Jonathan’s presidency has shown such competency or even the potentials in the past four years? The same competency needed in solving the Boko Haram insurgency is also required to solve the other security menaces like kidnapping, armed robbery and now the strident Fulani cattle rustlers and armed attackers. While I concede that President Jonathan is not the major cause of these security challenges, it is his primary responsibility to solve them. And if he lacks the capacity to deal with the challenges, then we need a change.

    With respect to infrastructure, it is also fair to ask whether the Jonathan presidency and indeed his party, the PDP, which has ruled Nigeria for 15 years, have been fair to our country. Starting from President Obasanjo’s years, to Yar’Adua’s interregnum, and the four years of President Jonathan, have Nigerians been given a fair result from the resources expanded over the years on our physical infrastructure. We must not hurriedly forget the billions of naira spent under the party’s political leadership since 1999, to provide the roads that are still death traps to Nigerians. Also, we can not fail to take into account the billions of dollars spent to resuscitate our electricity, without any measure of success. Recently, I watched in utter humiliation, the celebrated contraption running at about 20 kilometers per hour, on our antiquated rail lines in a 21st century; when other third-world nations were travelling on more modern rail lines at above 200 kilometers per hour.

    While the Jonathan presidency is touting the privatization of the electricity generation and distribution companies, as one of his major achievements; we must do a simple arithmetic to determine what our nation was able to realized from the sale of our electricity infrastructure to mainly PDP party members, in comparison to the humongous sums that President Obasanjo’s regime expended on the same infrastructure that his protégé, President Jonathan, gleefully sold few years down the line. If we have suffered the deprivation of electricity, despite the huge sums expended over the years, and now we have sold the same infrastructure at a loss under President Jonathan, would it be fair to expect Nigerians to give fresh four years tenure to the same political cabals.

    While we may not begrudge President Jonathan, his tact in rebasing our GDP, to place us first in Africa, we must keep our eyes on the main issue. Which is; what has changed in the quality of our lives, since PDP took over political power in 1999? If our lives have become worse, under the PDP leadership, would the celebration of a rebased GDP save our souls from the perdition, arising from a mismanaged economy? If under President Jonathan, corruption and ineptitude has become a permanent feature of political leadership, must we continue on the same road to Armageddon? I encourage those with the requisite competence to run, regardless of religion or tribe. For me, Jonathan must not win again, on mere sympathy.