Editorial
Beyond Teachers’ Shortage
A National Personnel Audit Report on Public and Private Basic Education Schools in Nigeria conducted in 2018 has revealed a significant shortage of no fewer than 277, 537 teachers required to fill existing gaps at the basic education level. The Executive Secretary, Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), Dr Hamid Bobboyi, stated recently.
The audit specifically indicated that while 73 per cent of those teaching in public schools were qualified teachers, only 53 per cent of teachers in private schools were eligible to teach. The commission said the qualified teachers in both categories possessed the minimum requirement of Nigeria Certificate in Education (NCE) and above.
Shortage of teachers in Nigeria’s school system, especially at the basic level, is a huge challenge and equally indicates the rot that characterises education in the country. This is indeed tragic and requires urgent measures to tackle. It is even more displeasing when the quality of education largely depends on the value and qualification of teaching staff.
That a large chunk of unqualified teachers who probably exceed the percentage captured by the audit are in private schools is contemptible. We urge existing regulatory agencies at the state level to irresistibly compel private schools to be more committed to the recruitment of trained teachers that meet the minimum requirements to teach at the basic level.
If the teaching profession must conform to global best practices, certification of teachers, therefore, must become a compelling obligation in the overall desire to make the teaching profession relevant to contemporary dynamics of knowledge impartation at different levels of education.
Teaching has been neglected for long and the deficit in the number of qualified teachers is a reflection of such disregard to a very reasonable extent. This is a crucial setback to the age-long quest to professionalise teaching and make it more beneficial to fulfil the educational needs of the country. No undertaking in education can translate into development if critical investments are not made in basic education.
In 2016, the National Council on Education (NCE) set December 31, 2019, as the deadline for teachers in Nigeria to be certified and registered as professionals with the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN). The deadline was set in the belief that those already employed as teachers, but without the minimum provisions would update their certificates and be eligible for registration with TRCN.
Given the development, over two million teachers nationwide were captured under the Teacher Information System (TIS) as at the end of 2019 with the goal that only qualified teachers would be eligible to teach in schools. Disconcertingly, two years after the deadline, so many unqualified basic teachers in public and private schools are still glaringly exhibited.
It is alarming that teachers’ welfare is not given meaningful attention in Nigeria. This exposes them to ridicule and opprobrium as many cannot readily attend to daily financial obligations. Unacceptably, teachers have to resort to strikes to press for the payment of salaries often owed in a backlog of arrears. That constitutes a major disincentive to acceptable standards of education.
A vital area we got it wrong in basic education is in our refusal to accord the right recognition to the recommendations of the United Nations Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organisation (UNESCO) for adequate commitment to capacity building for prospective teachers. This is, indeed, pathetic. Specifically, Articles 16 and 17 of UNESCO recommendation state.
“Adequate grants or financial assistance should be available to students preparing for teaching to enable them to follow the courses provided and to live decently; as far as possible, the competent authorities should seek to establish a system of free teacher-preparation institutions”.
It seems UNESCO foresaw the prevailing challenges responsible for the shortage of teachers and addressed them in their recommendations. Regardless, our failure to implement them is our undoing. The development of requisite skills and passion for teaching is entirely retarded and this is responsible for the prevalent disdain younger generations in primary and secondary schools have for the profession.
The peril of unqualified teachers and charlatanism in the teaching profession cannot be condoned any further. A major reason why the teaching profession, particularly at the basic level, has lost its flavour is largely attributable to the decades of system delinquency that makes the profession all-comers business.
However, beyond ensuring that teachers are enrolled under the TIS as well as for other administrative purposes, government at all levels must rededicate commitment to improving knowledge and manpower of categories of personnel in the teaching profession.
Nigeria ought to return to the TTC Teachers Training Centres era when the rudiments of teaching were imparted.
Funding for research-based knowledge acquisition and regular training for teachers must be accorded priority if the dwindling quality of education as witnessed progressively in the last several decades is to be curtailed. Quality of teaching can only be enhanced through a commitment to periodic improvement in the capacities of personnel.
It is heartwarming that UBEC is hopeful of properly utilising the 10 per cent of its allocated revenue to the professional development of teachers through States’ Universal Basic Education Boards (SUBEBs). Though we are apprehensive about the likelihood of optimal utilisation of such intervention funds for their rightful purposes, the government needs to commit more resources to bring about a significant impact on the improvement of capacities of teachers.