PRESIDENT Bola Ahmed Tinubu has assured Nigerian teachers of getting their due reward. The President made the
promise during the celebration of this year’s World Teachers’
Day (WTD) in Abuja. Represented at the occasion by the Vice
President Kashim Shettima, the President acknowledged that
the challenges of the teaching profession included overcrowded
classrooms, scarce resources and limited opportunities for
professional development.
These challenges, according to the President, were due mainly
to the prolonged neglect of the noble profession.
The World Teachers’ Day is held annually on
October 5 to celebrate all teachers around the
world. According to the United Nations Edu- cational, Cultural and Scientific Organisation
(UNESCO), the WTD “commemorates the
anniversary of the adoption of the 1966 ILO/
UNIESCO recommendation concerning the
status of teachers, which sets benchmarks
regarding the rights and responsibilities of
teachers and standards of their initial prepa- ration and further education, recruitment,
employment and teaching and learning con- ditions.”
UNESCO further states that the recommen- dation concerning the status of the of Higher-
Education Teaching Personnel was adopted in
1997 to complement the 1966 recommenda- tion by covering teaching personnel in higher
education. The WTD has been celebrated
since 1994. The theme of this year’s WTD,
“The teachers we need for the education we
want: The global imperative to reverse the
teacher shortage,” is quite apt and relevant to
our situation.
The challenges of the teaching profession
are more than those identified by the presi- dent. Apart from being a job of low prestige
and the last resort for every job seeker, it is
poorly rewarded. The primary school remains
the worst level to be a teacher in Nigeria. At
this level, the government and the pupils don’t
recognise your worth and importance. Opting
for teaching at this level is like subscribing to
a life of abject poverty.
It is even worse in the private schools, where
the quality of teachers is not prioritised. That
is probably why they say that the teachers’ re- wards are in heaven. Teaching in Nigeria has
been neglected and bastardised by successive
governments. Not even the lofty promises
made to them by former President Muham- madu Buhari have been fulfilled. And there is
no sign that they will be fulfilled soon.
Without investing so much in the nation’s
education system, starting with primary
school, the standard of our education will
continue to decline. The beginning of a sound
education system starts with the primary
school. If the foundation of our education sys- tem is faulty and weak, the secondary and ter- tiary levels will not fare any better.
It is sad that bright students no longer choose education as a course of study in the
universities. Those who go for education
courses do so after being rejected by their
preferred departments. The first thing the
government can do to make teaching attrac- tive to young graduates is to enhance the
conditions of service of all primary and sec- ondary school teachers and restore the pres- tige attached to the profession.
After that, the government can then ad- dress the challenges of teaching in the uni- versities and other tertiary institutions.
The recurring strikes by the Academic Staff
Union of Universities (ASUU) show that all
is not well with teaching in the nation’s uni- versities.
While it is not in dispute that teaching is
the foundation and bedrock of other profes- sions, it is paradoxical that those in govern- ment have failed to address the challenges
of the profession. Without addressing the
problems of education and teaching, Nige- ria’s hope of becoming a technologically ad- vanced nation in the nearest future will be a
mirage. Our hope of becoming a great nation
will be dashed.
The federal, state and local governments
should increase their education budgets sub- stantially in order to tackle the mounting
challenges facing the teaching profession.
It is not enough to make pronouncements
on how to improve the welfare of teachers
during the marking of each year’s WTD. The
government must be honest and willing to
make teaching enticing and attractive. Un- fortunately, the government has not done
much to halt the brain drain in the education
sector. It has also not done anything worth- while to check the migration of Nigerian
youths to Europe and America in search of
greener pastures.
The WTD should not be a day to mouth
slogans or say those sweet things the teach- ers and other Nigerians would like to hear.
Rather, it should be a day of reflection on the
plight of teachers and the teaching profes- sion and the ways to quickly address them.
Promoting and paying the teachers en- hanced wages must not be politicised. To ad- dress the challenge of inadequate teachers in
the nation’s schools, the government should
recruit at least 175,000 qualified teachers.