Sir: It is no longer news that over 21,780 teachers in the employment of Kaduna State government could not pass the primary four examination organised to assess their competence for continuous employment. What is rather baffling is the attempt of the teachers under the state chapter of the Nigeria Union of Teachers to blackmail the state government into condoning mediocrity in a critical sector of the polity.
The Kaduna saga again brought to the fore the rot in our educational system. The latest discovery reveals the quality of individuals who find their way into the noble calling of teaching. It clearly indicates that those we entrusted the future of our children are not the best of us. Teaching nowadays has become the last resort for both the unemployed and the unemployable graduates. Hence, it is now a refuge for all types of charlatans.
However as deplorable as the situation is, it is only a symptom of a more fundamental cause in our educational system. We are only scratching the surface if we think we can isolate the teachers as the only problem in the entire education sector. We need to fundamentally address a situation whereby educational disciplines in our tertiary institutions are not attractive to students.
How come our faculties of education suffer perennial poor enrolments? How come teaching does not ignite passion in our youths? Are teachers accorded the same respect with the bankers or other lucrative professions in our society?
Why would landlords prefer to let their houses to bankers rather than teachers? What are the teachers’ remunerations like? How committed is the government to the training and retraining of teachers?
These posers raise fundamental issues of funding, remunerations, motivations and recognitions. These are critical issues that must be addressed.
The kind of premium placed on teaching profession in other climes is not replicated here. In Cuba, for instance, according to a 2014 report by the World Bank, the country has the best education system in Latin America and the Caribbean and the only country on the continent to have a high-level teaching faculty. Peter Dolton, Sussex University Economics Professor and author of the Global Teacher Status Index stated that attracting good quality and well-qualified people into teaching is accepted as the essential prerequisite to raising educational standards. In Finland and Singapore, teachers are recruited from the most-qualified graduates, all with a second degree. Here in Nigeria reverse is the case as recruitment into public service including teaching service is for “political settlement or compensation”. And because you cannot sow pepper and reap onions, the seed of years of inequities have now germinated and become full grown before our very eyes. Unfortunately it is the innocent children who bear the brunt of the recruitment error.
This problem needs to be tackled holistically because we cannot be paying lip service to the sector and expects a dramatic result. The compromised recruitment system whereby selections are largely based on patronage as against merit need to be revisited. Only those who are competent and passionate about the job should be recruited. The Kaduna experience is a clarion call to refocus on the sector. The opportunity it provides to get rid of the bad eggs in the system should not be lost to political consideration. Special attention should be devoted to teachers’ training. Special incentives should be created to stimulate interests in the study of education related disciplines. Teachers should be well motivated such that they would have pride in the profession. This would ultimately attract the best brains to the profession.
As for the ‘casualties’ of the proposed reforms in Kaduna, they should assisted with training for other vocations while those who are trainable should be retained and made to undergo necessary skills acquisition to enhance their capacity for teaching.
- Babatunde M. Tijani
Isolo, Lagos State.
