By Gom Mirian
President of the Colleges of Education Academic Staff Union (COEASU), Dr. Smart Olugbeko, has identified lack of political will on the high level of unqualified teachers in Nigerian institutions of learning.
Olugbeko said this at a one-day workshop, Organised by the Education Correspondents’ Association Of Nigeria (ECAN), in collaboration with the Teachers Registration Council Of Nigeria (TRCN) on Thursday in Abuja
Speaking at the workshop themed, “Strengthening Teacher Education: Challenges and Opportunities in Basic Education Subsector in Nigeria,” experts in the education sector collectively agreed that the quality of teachers and their remuneration had to be scaled up to attain the quality of education desired in the country.
According to him, “There is need for a political will on the part of the government to stop this problem. If not, all that we are clamoring for will amount to nothing.
“When you go to the national assembly the easiest law for them to make is the establishment of institutions, making institutions become the easiest constituency projects.
“That is why we have all these institutions everywhere without appropriate plans to fund them rather than waiting to ambush TETFund to access funds.”
While highlighting challenges of sustaining quality education in Nigeria, he said some of the major issues retarding the quality of education in the country include non-professionalisation of teaching, brain drain syndrome, low morale of teachers, insufficient knowledge of ICT, and poor implementation of policies.
According to him, these policies border around funding policy, recruitment policy, quality assurance policy, curriculum development policy, training policy, planning policy, and language policy among others.
“NEEDS Assessment was carried out in 64 Colleges of Education in Nigeria in 2014 and it identified N396b as the total amount needed to fix infrastructural decay in the Colleges.
“In 2017, the government did a review of the 2014 report and came up with N464b as the sum needed to fix the Colleges.
Identified as part of the bane of the sector were -“Politicization of education, the appointment of principal officers, recruitment of staff, location of the institution, the establishment of institutions.
“Poor clinical experience Mass production of teachers by NTI, sandwich programmes in Colleges of Education and universities.
