Teachers' Voice – Nigeria - VSO

“Lecturers do very little lecturing and have to do too many odd jobs, which reduceslecturer capacity even further.”(VSO teacher trainer)Once away from their superiors, teachers often frankly admit how they felt obliged to bribe theirway through college. They accuse the lecturers of demanding money from the boys and“favours” from the girls in exchange for pass grades.Most stakeholders admit that the curriculum delivered has “too many small and irrelevantsubjects”, which are “not interrelated and context related” and that it contains very littleteaching and practising of teaching methodologies. Students get only 12 weeks’ teachingpractice during the entire course, which they undertake in their final year.This mixture of the learning environment, two-credit standard entrants and commonplacemalpractice results in the bitter reality of poorly educated and trained teachers, who in a lot ofcases do not know how to read or write fluently or correctly before entering the teachingprofession.5.2.2 TEACHER TRAINING: TEACHERS’ VIEWSTeachers generally are confident they have been educated well and sufficiently trained to dotheir job. Unfortunately, this doesn’t mean very much as they themselves are often not awareof the gaps in knowledge and skills.Teachers do, however, bitterly complain about being deprived of opportunities for furtherprofessional development, such as workshops, seminars, and refresher courses to update theircurrent subject knowledge and teaching methodologies. Nor do they get any encouragement toenhance and improve their teaching qualifications by returning to university to upgrade theircredentials. They passionately express dissatisfaction with their SUBEBs, as they areresponsible for the supply of such programmes.“We need workshops to better our teaching. Teachers need to be on those courses,not anyone else. SUBEBs and LGEAs are meant to give us them, but no, theynever happen.”(Teacher)Teachers have few means to update their current subject knowledge and skills independently.They suggest a research grant would enable them to enhance their motivational level andimprove their skills to deliver a good standard of education.There are only two colleges in the whole of Nigeria that train teachers in special needs and very fewof the students enter this area of teaching. This has led to the employment of standard mainstreamteachers in schools for children with special needs, learning difficulties and physical disabilities.Teachers in the private special needs schools have proven to be more motivated than those inpublic special needs schools, as they receive more training and their working environment ismore conducive. The government needs to increase special needs training in CoEs and improvethe existing curriculum to encourage student teachers to specialise and enter this rewardingarea of teaching.5.2.3 TEACHER TRAINING: STAKEHOLDERS' VIEWS“The level of students is way below the mark, some can hardly read and writethemselves; their numerical skills are non-existent and because of this, the studentscan’t cope with primary education studies, although the course is not demanding.”(VSO teacher trainer)28