The Executive Chair
man, Nasarawa State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB), Alhaji Abdulkareem Abdullahi, has attributed the falling standard of education in the country to the lack of qualified teachers.
Abdullahi stated this at a one-day workshop on Nigerian Women in Education in Lafia last Thursday which was organised for co-coordinators of primary education at the local government level in Lafia.
He said primary education must be given the necessary attention by governments at all levels to enable the pupils to have first hand knowledge on education before proceeding to the next level.
Abdullahi, however, attributed the dearth of qualified teachers to the scraping of Teachers Colleges in the country,  noting that the state government had begun the training and re-training of primary school teachers to improve their knowledge of teaching skills.
According to him, “education which is the bed rock for the development of any society needed to given priority attention by the three tiers of government.’’
He said the state government would partner with a UK-based non-governmental organisation, ‘Educational Support Initiative (ESPIN)’ to improve the standard of education in the state.
In his remarks, the Deputy Programme Manager of the organisation, Master Jack Ross, said more than 80 per cent of primary school teachers in six states of the federation were unqualified.
The states were Kano, Jigawa, Kaduna, Enugu, Lagos and Kwara.
Ross said that four out of every five teachers tested in the six states had problems articulating the school curriculum.
He said that a survey conducted revealed that the affected teachers could not impact knowledge to the pupils.
Ross further said although teachers paraded certificates of graduation from various schools of higher learning they lacked the requisite professional teaching qualification.
“That is why we embarked on the provision of professional development programme for classroom teachers so that they can acquire the skills to be able to communicate the curriculum effectively to the pupils,” he said.