When Nigeria joined the rest of the world to mark World Teachers’ Day last week, Prof. Mathew Sule, Executive Chairman, Plateau State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB), had one concern in his heart – the quality of education in Plateau’s primary schools.
As an educationist, he says he had always known that the first step toward quality education is to motivate the teacher because he is the most critical stakeholder in the quality education delivery chain.
“The teacher is the engine room of every educational pursuit because he moulds the raw head into great inventors, trail blazers and leaders in all fields.
“That role appears even more crucial when he is handling little ones in primary schools because, aside the academic aspect, he moulds their character and provides the prism from which they view the world,’’ he told newsmen.
Sule, who was appointed SUBEB boss in 2015, says he had all along known that the education sector was in bad shape, but nothing prepared him for the rot he met when he became the SUBEB boss.
“When I assumed office, I decided to visit some schools, but after visiting the first school, I came back a sad man – many children in primary five could neither read nor write. Some could not even spell their names !
“Subsequent visits to other schools, both in rural and urban areas, confirmed that the entire system was in bad shape and needed urgent attention,’’ he said.
Faced with such grim realities, Sule opted for a holistic approach and engaged stakeholders to diagnose the problem before seeking the solutions. And, as feared, he found that practically every segment of the educational chain – teachers, pupils, basic infrastructure, the general teaching and learning environment – needed urgent attention.
As an educationist, Sule says that he was particularly irked that the teacher, globally recognised as the engine room in every educational endeavour, had not been given the needed support to put in his best in class.
According to him, no serious government can afford to toy with the quality and welfare of teachers, if it was interested in development and growth.
He regretted that the Nigerian society had always expected teachers to reach terrific goals with inadequate tools and poor welfare, and wondered how such “magic’’ was possible.