Mass failure at Kaduna teachers’ competency test is tip of the iceberg

Last week, the internet and various social media platforms were awash with news about the mass failure of teachers in Kaduna during a recent competency test, pointing to a bigger challenge with regards to teaching and learning in Nigeria.

October 9, while receiving a World Bank delegation, Nasir El-Rufai, Governor of Kaduna state was reported to have said “we tested our 33,000 primary school teachers, we gave them primary four exams and required they must get at least 75 percent but I’m sad to announce that 66 percent of them failed to get the requirements.”

“The hiring of teachers in the past was politicised and we intend to change that by bringing in young and qualified primary school teachers to restore the dignity of education in the state” the governor said.

Education data report published by the National Bureau of Statistics in February 2016 show that Nigeria had 62,406 public primary schools in 2014 with a total enrolment of 23 million children. These schools have 574,579 teachers resulting in an average teacher to student ratio of 1 to 40 comparable to what is obtainable in most parts of Africa but twice higher than what is obtained in Europe and America and even most parts of Asia.

The high student teacher ratio basically means that most students in these classes are not getting enough attention from teachers since the classes are overcrowded. This poor attention is compounded by the fact that only 11 percent of teachers in public primary schools actually have an educational degree while 56 percent have the minimum National Certificate of Education (NCE). The remaining 33 percent of teachers have other undefined qualifications.

Besides the fact that majority of Nigeria’s future generation are studying in overcrowded classrooms, many of the teachers impacting knowledge into them do not have the qualifications that will guarantee that they can get the best education on offer.

The mass failure among teachers in Kaduna and the national data on education presented above show a need to urgently take the role teachers play in education seriously, if the students are to be equipped to compete favourably in an increasingly competitive global labour market.

Years of under investment in the public education infrastructure means that many of the schools in which Nigeria’s future Nigeria get their knowledge are in a very poor state. Visit the nearest public school near you and it is likely to have leaking roofs, no chairs and most significantly no library and even where there are libraries, there are no books or the books are very old editions that were written before the digital age came upon us. So while Europe and America are talking about broadband access in every classroom, we are yet to achieve a library in every school. The country is already falling on the wrong side of the digital divide.