BY TEMI OHAKWE
That the education sector in Nigeria is in dire straits, would be an understatement. It surely requires urgent attention for revival and total overhaul. The development also calls for critical evaluation of the crisis situation in the sector.
Concerned about the decay, the Nigerian Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), in 2019, evolved and launched the National Personnel Audit (NPA) as one of its major features as part of its bold strides in addressing the noticeable significant deficit in the number of qualified teachers at the basic level of education, both in the public and private schools.
The UBEC’s NPA indicated that no fewer than 277, 537 qualified teachers were required to fill existing gaps at the basic level of education in Nigeria. Significantly, the audit revealed that while 73 percent of teachers in public basic schools are qualified, only 53 percent of their counterparts in the private schools were eligible to teach at the basic level.
Taking a cue from there, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), recently added a frightening dimension to it as it declared that Nigeria faces a staggering learning crisis with learning outcomes being one of the lowest globally. In the records of the UN Agency which is a source of great concern, 70 per cent of children in schools in Nigeria cannot read and write or perform basic numeracy tasks by age 10, as deduced from the National Learning Assessment 2017. It attributed this worrisome development to Shortage of qualified basic teachers, which no doubt, reveals the depth of poor academic performance among pupils at the primary school level.
This may not be far-fetched as most of the unqualified teachers lacked the competence to deliver quality teaching to the pupils taking into consideration of available data revealing that the teachers have not also been trained in deploying 21st-century skills in teaching hence, presenting their classes to be teacher-centered and depriving the pupils the opportunity to be engaged in the learning process.
In this wise, to stress the importance of qualified teachers to achieving learning at the foundational level of education can be better appreciated than imagined just as it cannot be better explained and understood the importance the necessity of transferring knowledge to pupils as well as the act of impacting and receiving knowledge from a teacher is critical to achieving key element of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which specifically aims at the Goal 4 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). These identifies education as a major driver for the achievement of other 17SDGs in Nigeria and the world over.
In promoting teachers’ professionalism, the Nigerian government through the Teachers’ Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN), has been saddled with the responsibility of conducting mandatory continued development in digital and online teaching training programmes for teachers in two out of the three geopolitical zones as mapped out in the year 2021.
With a clearer direction on the training programmes for teachers in Nigeria, the Registrar of the Council, Professor Josiah Ajiboye said the TRCN now targets the training of 45000 teachers across 24 states under the Global Partnership Education (GPE), Digital Literacy Training as well as Remote Learning Strategies For Teachers.
The Council he further said, designed the training to bridge the gap created by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic that affected the Nigerian education system, adding that it also believes it would build resilience in learners against future shock.
Beyond this, UNICEF Education Expert, Manar Ahmed during her presentation on Foundational Literacy and Numeracy in Nigeria said that 70percent new dimension of crisis in the basic education sector in which children below 10years in school are not adequately learning, requires a needed change in approach of training and retraining of teachers at the basic level.
Manar further revealed during her presentation that regional disparities at the basic education level revealed that 33percent of unqualified teachers are situated in the North-east of Nigeria with the North-west geo-political zone having a higher figure of 39percent.
Giving the disturbing situation, Manar counseled that training of teachers must go beyond theories to on the job training which creates opportunity for the teachers to get feedback and action plan on how to improve on the teaching skills. She did not stop at offering her advice but stressed the fact that different teaching development professional modalities would always result in better learning outcomes.
In her words; “This idea on teacher professional development is more crucial than teacher training. It involves creating enabling environment, supportive tools, community of practice that will support the teachers, peer support and supervising assessment of teachers performance”.
Not done, Manar noted that teaching at the basic education level must be tailored in a way that it should involve teaching and learning practices saying; “You do not only just train the teachers but ensuring that the teachers on return to their schools after theoretic trainings have enabling environment beginning with Head teachers, school support services to provide quality coaching and mentoring as well as supportive supervision.
“Circle support is most important whereby the teachers feel they are supported from the Head teacher who should provide supervisory feedbacks as well as school support services. As the teachers help the children to learn, this will have positive impact on learning outcomes at the basic level,” she enthused.
The UNICEF expert therefore advocated for deliberate investment in Structural Teacher Continuous Professional development programmes in addition to community engagement which she stressed is also key to learning outcomes.
Sharing the UNICEF experiences on Reading and Numeracy Activity, Manar opined that digital and blending approach has worked for the agency in mitigating the negative impacts of COVID-19 on the basic education sub-sector just as she added that this involves the use of intranet, internet connectivity to the classroom.
She concluded by saying; “Digital does not only mean internet connection to all classrooms but also the engagement of Radio, TV, edutainment and edu-programmings including the use of digital materials that can work online/offline”.
All said as presented above, the issue of implementation of recommendations by experts have been the major bane of development in Nigeria. It is however, hoped with so much expectation that if our policy managers can give the issues raised and the recommendations proffered the desired attention, the nation’s education sector will be the better for it.
