Teacher training programmes need urgent review

Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State in his New Year broadcast spoke about why he sacked over 20,000 teachers in the state and made reference to an Education Sector Support Programme in Nigeria (ESSPIN) report on how to optimise teacher training in the state.

Among the findings of the 2009 ESSPIN report was that teacher education in Kaduna State appeared to operate within a policy vacuum.

The report highlighted that colleges of education received little or no strategic guidance on the numbers and types of teachers they should be training and for which subjects or grades. It pointed to an urgent need for more constructive dialogue among the state government, the state Ministry of Education and colleges of education. The dialogue, it said, was to determine the state’s present and future needs for across-the-curriculum for primary teachers and subject teachers for junior secondary schools.

Furthermore, the report recommended upgrade and update of the skills, knowledge and competencies of practicing teachers and college lecturers.

The situation in Kaduna is not different from what obtains in many other states of Nigeria, as well as universities and colleges of education across the country, and calls for a national movement to improve the quality of teacher training programmes.

“For starters, teacher training curriculum is obsolete. I was awarded a bachelor’s degree in Education from the University of Ibadan over 30 years ago. Three decades on, the curriculum has not significantly changed,” says Tunji Abimbola, director of education at TMAB Education Consulting and former special adviser to the Ogun State governor on education.

But the biggest challenge is with public perception of teachers. The education faculty of most Nigerian universities is construed as a dumping site for candidates rejected by other faculties thought to be more ‘lucrative’, just as teaching and teacher training colleges have been seen as reserved for those who have failed to meet the entry requirements into more competitive disciplines. Worse still, lowering the entry requirements into colleges of education and education faculty of universities also sends out the wrong signal that the profession is not good enough to attract the best.

STEPHEN ONYEKWELU

The writer can be reached via stephen.onyekwelu@ businessdayonline.com or +2348137433034.