‘Re-tooling teachers’ capacity panacea to education growth’
A vailable statistics in Nigeria today shows that the population of students in different levels of educational institutions continues to rise across the country, there is however no corresponding surge in the creation of teachers to handle this increase, a situation that is triggering the production of poorly trained students and graduates as the case maybe.
This situation is further heighten by the growing lack of interest for the profession by younger generation as the teaching profession suffer serious setback.
It is against this backdrop that professionals in the field of education have called for the retooling of teachers in the profession to make it more attractive to graduates with the flair for teaching.
They observe that there is an urgent need to double the current rate of teacher production at the basic and higher education levels.
Peter Okebukola, former executive secretary National Universities commission (NUC) disclosed that a 15-year study has shown that teacher quality accounts for about 22 percent of the variance of score on overall quality of education system.
Okebukola therefore called on the incoming government led by Muhammadu Buhari to dismantle the current model of teacher preparation and install one that will lead to the production of quality teachers who are steeped in content knowledge.
According to him, there is a yawning gap between the expected profile of a graduate teacher from the Nigerian university system and the kind of graduates that our universities spew out from year to year”
“We cannot hope for a top quality education system if we staff our schools with such second-rate teachers. We need a profession full of inspiring, innovative, creative and knowledgeable teachers,” he said.
The university don is of the opinion that the only way to close the gap between the expected and the observed is in enhancing the quality of training for teachers in the country.
He called on the incoming government to double leakage-free investment in education in the next four years at the federal, state and local governments, this he believe will translate to 30 percent improvement on all socio-economic indicators in the next ten years
“Within the systems model, at least 20 percent of investment in education should address teacher quality and quantity and 35 percent on facilities and learner-friendly environment” he added.
Olufunto Igun, Chief executive officer, Corona Schools Trust observed that the issue of teacher training at all levels is a pivotal task that shouldn’t be toyed with.
Igun noted the best talents are not in the teaching profession where they should belong adding that the earlier the issue is addressed by government and stakeholders the better for the nation.
She further added that it is critical that teaching profession be revamped so that graduates with bright prospects of teaching would see it as a viable, profitable and noble career path to tread.
KELECHI EWUZIE