Teachers' Voice – Nigeria - VSO

Stakeholders readily admit that the entrance requirements of two credits into CoEs, does notattract the quality of entrants needed to educate the coming generations of Nigeria. A UBECrepresentative suggests:“The remedial programmes in teacher training colleges attract the inferior studentsto begin with; this would stop if teaching is professionalised, diplomas are demandedand decent salaries are paid. Enhance education – so that you can get brains ratherthan drop outs.”(SUBEB representative)Stakeholders warn that unless the government makes the teaching profession more attractive,it will not entice the calibre of teachers needed to provide a high standard of education.At present, many student teachers choose this career path, when they have been rejectedadmission from other more ‘prominent’ university and college courses. In Nigeria people applyfor the most attractive profession with regard to remuneration and working conditions, asopposed to what they may have an interest or talent in. Therefore, teaching is at the bottom ofthe pile, when it comes to professional appeal. Community members explain:“Before now, people used to choose teaching as a career – they were dedicated andtaught very well. Today most teachers are unqualified and cannot teach well; theyteach to earn a living. Teachers are posted to schools and they do not report fortheir duty.”(Community members)Stakeholders agree that:• Teacher training needs to be more teaching based.• Training should be taken into the classroom.• Placements should take at least a year and be carefully monitored so that schools benefit more.• Teaching should be made compulsory at least during the first year after completion ofthe course.“People with a certificate in teaching should be encouraged to take and hold down ateaching job. Right now colleges produce enough teachers, but they are not given jobs.In each state one college of education is now assigned to place and monitor newteachers.”(A variety of voices from different official bodies)“Among the major recommendations was the need to bridge the gap between collegesof education and schools and between teachers, educators and student teachers. Thiswould help produce teachers who can cope with the adverse situation in schoolscreatively and who are not only up to date in their teaching techniques but are alsocommitted to high quality performance. The armchair and theory-oriented teachereducation that currently goes on in colleges of education only produce NCE teacherswho are very weak, even in lesson preparation and who lack any insight into enliveningtheir lessons with innovative ideas.”(Teacher)The NCCE is presently in the process of reviewing the CoE curriculum.“We visited a large number of CoEs, federal, state and private ones. At the federalones, where we could only go by introduction, we got to see what the provost waswilling to show us, no more, no less. And often that was bad enough. We did not getmuch chance to talk to the lecturers though. However, once private CoEs got wind ofour research, they started to invite us of their own accord and there we went without29