It’s quite alarming that the Nigerian Education System keeps deteriorating day by day. The system is facing a lot of challenges, one of which is the employment of unqualified and unprofessional teachers. Even when these challenges are obvious, the problem keeps eating up the system while the major stakeholders seem to turn blind eyes.
At a point, one will have to give credit to the private sector for the least improvement the educational system has witnessed. However, everything that has an advantage equally has its disadvantages( regardless of how minor it is) but when the latter overrides the former, then the problem gets more complicated.
Daily, New private schools are being established. This is great! But the question is, are these schools standard? Are they registered by the government? Are there professional teachers?
In Nigeria today, it seems as though anyone can wake up one morning to start school in his or her living room without getting a license from the government. These schools go ahead to employ unprofessionals and people with little or no experience in the teaching profession.
To be a professional teacher, in Nigeria, you need a minimum Nigeria Certificate in Education and a license from the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN).
However, It is depressing that many of the teachers we have today do not even have the minimum qualifications not to talk of a license. This is one of the major reasons the teaching profession has been bastardized. Only a few want to become a teacher, and only a few want to study education. Most of the education students in Nigeria didn’t originally choose the course, they were given it against their will.
If an O-level student can be allowed to teach in a school, why should I stress myself studying an educational course for three or four years?
Generally, The societal notion is that “anyone can teach” accompanied by questions like “Is it not to teach? What’s there?”. This widespread misconception has brought about a whole lot of havoc in schools, on students and in the educational sector!
The underlying reason behind the societal notion of “anybody can teach” stems from the illusion that “some people are born teachers because they teach so well.”
Well, there are many people too that naturally care so well yet no one is saying anybody can be a Nurse! The same way we shouldn’t or wouldn’t entrust a patient in the hands of a quack nurse is the same way no proprietor or parent should entrust their wards or kids into the hands of untrained teachers. What will happen to your child if you don’t heed this advice? Well, the same thing that happens to a patient in the hands of a quack nurse.
Teaching is an art that needs to be learnt, and this art is the creative way in which a professional teacher teaches.
Teaching is psychological.
Teaching is reforming the mind.
Teaching is informing the mind.
Teaching is instructing the mind.
Teaching is shaping children.
Teaching is building the nation.
We need to take the teaching profession seriously in Nigeria because it is the heart of the Nation.
3 Comments
Powerful! Interesting read. Teaching is at the heart of civilization, and how far we can see depends on how high our altitude is. Teacher set altitude. Let’s hope for a change.
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