Former Minister of Education Prof. Ruqayyah Ahmed Rufai’ has thrown her weight behind the extension of teaching practice (TP) beyond the usual six or 12 weeks, to at least a year at colleges of education and universities nationwide.
This will afford students to be more grounded in their subjects of specialisation, as well as boost their self confidence, Prof. Rufai argued.
Prof. Rufai delivered the Lagos State University (LASU) Faculty of Education annual distinguished lecture Tuesday with the theme: Teachers preparation for Nigerian schools: Adequacy, effectiveness and impact.
She said: “The usual six or 12 weeks students in colleges of education and universities use as teaching practice is not enough as it does not make them well grounded. I am therefore suggesting at least a year period for their TP.
“In addition, these students should oftentimes be subjected to class demonstration. They should be given as many opportunities as possible to demonstrate in class the knowledge that has been imparted in them as this will further enhance their self confidence.”
According to Prof. Rufai, the greatest challenge in teacher education in Nigeria is poor quality teachers. Prof. Rufai laid the blame at the doorstep of public office holders who are often fond of recruiting family members and bootlickers into the teaching profession.
“We got it wrong from the recruitment (exercise),” she continued.
“Majority (of teachers) found their way into education today through the help of public office holders that recruited their family members and children of their bootlickers. These people fraudulently get into the system, with little or no knowledge of education and they become pollutants.
“Henceforth, there has to be thorough screening and cross checking of would-be teachers during recruitment to ensure the very best are recruited. The culture of bringing quacks into the system through lopsided methods must stop.”
She lamented that while other climes are already using technology to revolutionise education, Nigeria is still grappling with problems such as poor funding, dearth of infrastructures, quacks in the system, and policy somersault among others, for more than three decades.
Due to the development, average or low JAMB score benchmarked for candidates desirous of studying education might continue to discourage best brains from studying education programmes as it is symptomatic of government’s negligence of the sector over the years.
To address many of the challenges bedeviling the sector, Prof. Rufai called on the Federal Government and stakeholders to come up with a roadmap that spells out the problems, one after the other, while seeking comprehensive solutions to them.
Corroborating Prof. Rufai, former Executive Secretary, National Universities Commission, Prof Peter Okebukola, noted that quality teacher cannot be over-emphasised, describing it as one of the variables to quality education delivery.