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By Seyi Bakare
It of Zamfara State, Alhaji Bello Matawalle, is lucky to have the congresses of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in his state put forward to a yet to be determined date, as that would avail him the opportunity to learn a lesson or two from the crises that followed the congresses in other states.
It is usual to serenade teachers in Nigeria. But the key question remains whether teachers, at one time so revered in this country that only clergymen were ranked higher than them, are being given the respect, love and care they so richly deserve; in short, whether they are being treated right.
The answer, if experience since the return to civil rule in 1999 is anything to go by, is a categorical No. But that’s not where the tragedy lies: the real tragedy is that in most states, teachers are not just being maltreated, they are not even being treated as human beings in the first place. In this country, a state governor actually owed teachers over 24 months’ salaries!
Yet as the educationist, Carol Tomlinson, says great leaders unambiguously understand that the work of building student lives happens at the hands of teachers, and that much of the leader’s work must focus on supporting teacher success. These great leaders, she avers, “learn about the teachers as human beings—in the classroom and beyond. They seek teacher input and advice. They listen.
“They prove themselves to be worthy of a teacher’s trust, time and time again. They pay attention to teaching, not for purposes of judgment, but to learn from teachers and students. They provide multiple forms of support to help each teacher grow as a person and as a practitioner of and contributor to education.”
And it is to those “multiple forms of support” that we now wish to pay attention as we ponder what is going on in Ogun State since May 29, 2019, when Dapo Abiodun became the fifth elected governor of the Gateway State. No sooner had the Iperu-born prince assumed office than he abolished the educational levy instituted by his predecessor, thus returning thousands of children from economically deprived homes to school, cleared the backlog of teachers’ promotion, started building model schools and emplaced incentives to motivate teachers at all levels.
Only last week, government commenced distribution of appointment letters to 5,000 teachers. The exercise, supervised by Chairman, Ogun State Teaching Commission (TESCOM), Olalekan Ifede, followed Abiodun’s promise to mark World Teachers Day that the teachers would soon be given their letters of appointment.
The introduction of the Ogun Teach Intervention to employ 5,000 interns is to fill teacher vacancies in primary, secondary and technical colleges. According to the governor, the move is ultimately “to ensure the future is better than the present.” That’s a noble objective.
Among others, the administration established the Ogun State Education Intervention Fund (OGSEIF) to achieve improved funding for the educational sector of the state. It allocated lands to members of the All Nigeria Conference of Principals of Secondary Schools (ANCOPSS) and the Association of Primary School Headteachers of Nigeria (AOPSHON) for the construction of their secretariats.
Government is currently supplying new furniture to primary and secondary schools and rehabilitating over 956 classrooms. It has upgraded 42 secondary schools to flagship schools for better performance and commenced the Ogun Digitalized Multimedia Lesson Plan to equip teachers with the resources for effective delivery in line with global standards.
This accords with the recommendations of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) on teacher development: “The necessity of prioritizing human resource development in educational systems cannot be overemphasized. Among the strategies for action that will contribute directly to an improvement of the quality of education is a sustained investment in the professional development of teachers and the improvement of their working and employment conditions. The status of teachers and the status of education are closely related.”
Having introduced the pre-shaded Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) objective answer sheet for the conduct of Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE), a 50 per cent increase in feeding allowance for learners in special needs schools, full sponsorship of public school students to all academic competitions, resuscitation and relocation of Ogun State Braille Book Production Centre as well as annual distribution of wheelchairs to the special needs learners, the government can be seen to have taken the bulls by the horns in the education sector.
If anything, the approval of scholarships for outstanding students in all of the state’s tertiary institutions, the establishment of OGSEIF to achieve improved funding, the appointment of headmasters and principal generals are all parts of the educational revival in the state. As observed by the ILO, teachers can only be the catalysts for change in the movement against child labour if they are supported in the process of improving their work with children in the classroom.
Thus, their credibility among parents and community members and the all-important trust in their concern for the welfare of children and the community is closely tied to their ability to provide the quality of education that parents seek for their children.
During the World Teacher’s Day celebrations, the governor rewarded the best teachers, gifting a semi-detached bungalow to the best overall teacher for the year 2020. His rationale: the state must continue to attract bright-minded young teachers to the teaching profession.
For a governor who gifted a two-bedroom bungalow and N2million to an indigene, who emerged Overall Best Graduating Student of the Lagos State University (LASU), Ojoo and set up a N5million Endowment Fund in honour of a student of the Ambassadors College, Ota, who emerged winner in the Global Open Mathematics Tournament, this came as no surprise. ANCOPSS decorated him as the best Education-friendly Governor in the South West. The National Parents Teachers Association gave him the Best Governor in the Educational Sector award.
Successive governments paid lip service to getting quality professionals to man secondary schools and this affected teaching negatively. With Abiodun’s initiative, the extant gaps will be bridged. All the teachers newly employed have a background in education: they have the professional competence to impart knowledge, armed with good degrees in their various disciplines.
The move will definitely improve the quality of products coming out of the system. It is not for nothing that the governor is giving incentives to teachers: he wants them to be on top of their game. The message is clear: there is reward for hard work in Ogun State and teachers do not have to wait till they get to heaven to receive them.
According to one of the new teachers: “I see this move as a step in the right direction. Previously, it was PTA teachers that handled core subjects in may schools. Now that we have been employed, parents can spend the money they normally contribute at the end of every month to pay us on other things. It’s an exciting moment for the state.”
•Bakare sent this piece through [email protected]
