There was a time when teachers were properly trained and had the right temperament to handle children, who are in their formative years. That was back in the days when the country had teacher training colleges. The problems we are seeing in the way that teachers relate to and handle, particularly in public schools, began to unfold and rapidly gained momentum after the teacher training schools were scrapped.
Granted that errant school children, whether in primary or secondary schools, deserve to be punished, after previously being cautioned, executing such punishment should not be done irresponsibly as has been seen in recent cases by half-baked teachers who are putting a stain on the noble profession.
Take the recent death of 13-year-old Yahaya Aliyu, a student of Federal Government College, Kwali in Kuje Area Council of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. According to reports, the teacher was said to hit him in the head while trying to punish him for not finishing his assignment even after the teacher was told that the boy was sick. In the same vein, a 12-year-old girl was flogged to death in a school located in Awka in Anambra state for failing to do her assignment. In Ikorodu area of Lagos State, a teacher was also accused of flogging a student to death for failing to answer a mathematics question correctly in class.
On February 26, 2020, students of Ekiugbo Grammar School, Ughelli North Local Government Area of Delta State violently protested and destroyed the principal’s office, school and teachers’ properties because a teacher allegedly flogged a JSS student Kelvin Ogheneogaga, who later died in hospital. In February 2018 in Zamfara State, a teacher at Government Day Secondary School, Sankalawa in Bungudu Local Government Area of the state allegedly flogged a student to death. In the same state, it was another tragedy at Government Female Day Secondary School, Kwatarkwashi, where a student in the school was severely injured after the vice principal allegedly subjected her to heavy punishment. In Katsina, a mathematics teacher allegedly flogged a student, Fatima Tasi’u, to death. The list is endless. What manner of devilish teachers from hell are all these? Was this how parents harvested deaths of their children in the hands of teachers during the colonial and immediate post-colonial eras?
The blame for such actions cannot be properly heaped on the untrained and unguarded teachers alone. What do you expect when square peg in round hole? The government failed to provide job opportunities for graduates with qualifications in various disciplines. When a student graduates and embarks on an unending job hunt, the next available job would be the teaching profession where private and public schools would gladly welcome them with open arms. This is how half-baked people flooded the once noble teaching profession, some of who have now turned schools into killing grounds. Honestly, I wonder what runs through the minds of these teachers after their devilish act. What do you say to parents of the dead? “I am sorry?” Just like that?
The fact that so many people in the profession are not qualified to be teachers explains why they flog with wickedness in the heart and not for correctional purposes. There are so many other ways to correct a child, instead of causing sorrow to his or her loved ones.
Apart from flogging students to death, there are other numerous cases of ill treatment by teachers to students. There have been cases where teachers raped both male and female students, compelled the girls to procure abortion, initiate some into cultism, extort money from students while eating their food and denying it. Other forms of atrocities perpetrated by teachers include demeaning students, all manner of verbal abuse and curses on students and their parents, nepotism in compiling results, aiding students in examination malpractices and instigate them in local politics in schools. I have personally sat in the Teachers’ staff room of a particular school and listen to teachers rain abuses on students they are expected to raise as worthy ambassadors. Words like stupid, idiot and useless fly out of their mouths are as easy as ABC. Non-academic staff are also not exempted from the abuses and curses.
Most parents have experienced result favoritism. Julian Isoke recounted his experience: “My son was tribally denied of his overall first position during the promotional examination. He was surprised that he didn’t clinch his awards and cried home because he had seen most of his scripts during the tests and was already topping the class. He insisted I must take him to the school. I demanded for his scripts, only to discover that one of his grades was purposely recorded in error to cover up and that affected his scores. After we discovered it was done to punish him, the school authority gathered and apologized to me and waived his school fees for the next term. I knelt down and made a pronouncement: “As you denied my son his day of joy, so shall God deny you your own day of glory.” I withdrew my other children from the school and left.
My young relative John Okwu was one of the few pupils who were delivered from fear of mathematics as a subject because of the attitude of his teacher in primary school. “When we were in Primary 5, my teacher asked me to solve a mathematics puzzle on the blackboard. I failed it and she asked my classmates to jeer at me. That yelling with constant calling of shame from the class of 30 students almost made me to hate the entire system called school, if not for my father who took me back to school and told the headmaster my fear. I would have been a school dropout today. The intelligent headmaster removed me from that teacher’s class and insisted I should be shown extra love, no matter how poor I performed and that was my turning point. Today, I am a chartered accountant.”
The issue here is not rubbishing all teachers because there are still some exceptional ones in existence. The likes of late Madam Paulina Ihejieto who would gather her students like a hen covers her chicks and motivate them to excel during quiz competitions. Mrs. Odesta Nchege was my African American principal; during our WAEC examination, she made all day students to move into the dormitory because of 7:00pm English Language revision, which she taught by herself. She created time to teach us English Language for one week in the evening and we excelled when the result came out.
Shockingly, teachers who do not write on the blackboard but sit down to dictate notes are not part of the system because teaching involves writing, explanation, talking and walking round the class for assessment. Female teachers who shell melon seeds in the staff room, peel groundnut, sell biscuits and chocolates secretly to students have all contributed reduce the nobility of the profession.
Dear Nigerians, while we look at the poor side of the profession, let us not forget that teachers are poorly remunerated. It is not the worst scenario, but things could get better if we all agree and work together. Teachers are supposed to be honoured, noble educators who are smart, focused, intelligent, responsible, hardworking, yet very firm.