500,000 teachers/N-POWER: A project designed to fail?

Teachers are part of an education system. Improving student learning depends on the effective operation of this system, which needs to be evidence-based, process-focused, results-oriented and well-resourced? Good systems need to be able to attract good candidates to the teaching profession and to equitably deploy, motivate, develop, retain and support those recruited. Hiring qualified, professionally […]

Teachers are part of an education system. Improving student learning depends on the effective operation of this system, which needs to be evidence-based, process-focused, results-oriented and well-resourced? Good systems need to be able to attract good candidates to the teaching profession and to equitably deploy, motivate, develop, retain and support those recruited.
Hiring qualified, professionally trained, motivated, and well-supported teachers available for all learners is essential for addressing today’s key education challenges in Nigeria. The quality of an education system can exceed neither the quality of its teachers nor the quality of its teaching.
Finally, FGN has rolled out the long awaited youth empowerment scheme, with the recruitment of 500, 000 teachers, to teach in primary/secondary schools for the period of only two years and the monthly allowance is 23,000 Naira only.
I’m still struggling to understand what might likely be the impact of this scheme…a lots of issues are not connecting here…from the design of the project to its implementations modalities.
My first qualm is about the IMPACT of the scheme. What did they intend to achieve? Empowering youth or improving quality of education with the Teachers Corps? These are two different things, which should be given two different attentions.
Poorly designed projects lead to poor results. Problems are often blamed on marginalized learners themselves – they are poor, learning in a poor classrooms condition, trained by poor teachers, with the poorly designed monitoring and evaluation system, they don’t know how to study – but are we sure the problems are not with the ‘system’ itself?  The Policy! The Will and the Policy Makers.
Irrespective of which angle you are looking at challenges of quality learning outcome in Nigeria schools today, either as an educationist or policy makers, we are all looking for the most relevant, applicable and effective ways to improve education for diverse learners, especially those who are not well served by present-day education systems.
Please let’s think in sustainable ways! I hope I have wailed well.
Murtala Adogi Mohammed, [email protected]