FCT’s teacher shortage crisis deepens

Virtually, every primary school in the FCT has its problems, most of which are common to all the schools. These problems range from insufficient teaching facilities, dilapidated buildings to inadequate teachers. In some schools, teachers were forced to teach multiple subjects including those they are not certified to teach.     Anguwan Dio LEA Primary School […]

Virtually, every primary school in the FCT has its problems, most of which are common to all the schools. These problems range from insufficient teaching facilities, dilapidated buildings to inadequate teachers. In some schools, teachers were forced to teach multiple subjects including those they are not certified to teach. 

 

 Anguwan Dio LEA Primary School in Gwagwalada Area Council was one of the schools facing severe problems. The road to the school was in poor conditions with potholes and there were no sufficient teachers to handle all the subjects.

There were only four teachers for classes one to six, a situation that forced the headmistress to merge some classes to enable the teachers control the pupils and prevent them from leaving their classrooms in the absence of some teachers.

The headmistress too, was forced to combine administrative job and teaching and each teacher had to handle three to four subjects out of their field of specialization.

The headmistress, Mrs. Lohya N. Miri said the deepening teacher shortage had almost attained a crisis point in many schools to the extent that the few teachers available had to teach multi-level classes or combined classrooms.  She said combining different levels of classes per teacher isn’t ideal and had somewhat hindered the delivery of quality education.  She said the school will continue to face challenges for as long as the shortage of the teaching staff persisted.

“We don’t have enough teachers; that is why we merged two classes together. Had it been we have enough teachers we would have split them to different classes. For now we have three teachers the fourth one is sick”, she said.

 The school needed about five more teachers because of additional classes for early child education, she said.

She said the teachers were trained on how to teach two classes at the same time so that no pupil would be left behind.

According to Mrs. Miri, the merging of classes would affect the way the teacher would impact knowledge to the pupils.

 She said the school also had inadequate classrooms for the growing number of pupils.

She however applauded the Japanese government for the ongoing construction of six additional classes.

She said that the additional classes would finally address the challenges facing the school.

She said classrooms for pupils in early child care stage were dilapidated.

The Chairman Parent Teachers’ Association (PTA), Adamu Isa said that lack of teachers and classrooms were the major challenge facing the school.

“We need additional classes for our children. We also need additional teachers. We have only four teachers and the number of our pupils is increasing every day. We want government to come to our aid,” he said.

The Chairman Nigeria Union of Teachers Gwagwalada Branch, Comrade Idris Kahinde Isma’il said that lack of teachers was a general challenge to FCT schools.

“Lack of teachers is not peculiar to Anguwan Dio primary school or Gwagwalada primary schools. It is a general problem. In the FCT you see over 100 pupils in a classroom being handled by only one teacher. Therefore, you can see that many school are understaffed.”

He said combined classes posed negative effect on the academic performance of the pupils.

He said the government should take proactive measures to send teachers to rural schools to achieve desired goals.

When contacted, the Executive Director Federal Capital Territory Administration Universal Basic Education Board (FCT-UBEB), Dr. Adamu Jatau Noma said that the board had embarked on construction of storey classrooms buildings to create more space in the FCT schools.

“FCT schools are congested due to the daily influx of people to Abuja. We are constructing storey buildings in our schools. You can see that we don’t have space in our schools. Therefore, that is the only way to provide space in our schools that are in the city and rural areas.”

He said that the board initiated the project five years ago adding that it had already constructed more classrooms in some schools in the city centre.

According to him, the structure would attract children to go to school particularly in rural areas.

He said that the board was making frantic efforts to ensure that classroom accommodations are made available to pupils in the FCT. This, he said, would encourage children to learn in comfortable atmosphere and get qualitative education.