Few primary teachers know their discipline – Professor Akogun

Your organisation recently launched a research in Kaduna and Kano states. What is the research about? EDOREN is a four-year initiative of the United Kingdom Department for International Development (DFID) with a mandate to generate new evidence and understanding on how best to support equitable access and improved learning outcomes for all Nigerian children, through […]

Your organisation recently launched a research in Kaduna and Kano states. What is the research about?
EDOREN is a four-year initiative of the United Kingdom Department for International Development (DFID) with a mandate to generate new evidence and understanding on how best to support equitable access and improved learning outcomes for all Nigerian children, through innovation and sustainable development of basic education systems. The research is on how to identify and recruit an effective teacher, that is, a teacher that performs well. It is about two things, ‘an effective teacher’, and ‘how to improve an effective teacher.’ The method we are using is to get the policy makers and those in the academic angle to sit together and think about the work, form a team from the states and carry out a research with our support. So the N10m involved in the initiative is for the research.
Before now, we were recruiting individuals to go and do the study and give the result to the states. We are not doing that now, they will do the study and use the result to form their own policy. 

What informed the decision to carry out this form of research? 
There is a decline in the level of performance of pupils. If the performance of the pupils is low, it means the performance of the teachers is equally low. That is what informed the decision and the issue is: where is it coming from? Could it be that we are not able to identify an effective teacher, or we just ignore them?
There is so much emphasis on qualification, ranging from NCE to degree. As a result, you will notice that more than 60% of people who teach in schools have National Certificate of Education (NCE). So, the qualification is there, and we expect 65% to be effective. Studies conducted by EDOREN in Kano and Kaduna states in Northern Nigerian shows that primary school teachers have limited knowledge of the subjects they teach, such as English, mathematics and science. Also, classroom observation suggests that teaching skills are poor. Another study shows that only 8 percent of teachers knew enough of mathematics and only 1 in 200 teachers spoke sufficient English. For that reason, it is not surprising that pupil learning levels are very low in these schools. A big problem lies with the NCE. Our study suggests that many NCE qualified teachers are insufficiently prepared to teach.
Yet, government often equates teacher quality with NCE certification and, thus, fails to recruit the most effective teachers. Our hiring process needs to move beyond NCE. We need to identify new selection criteria based on performance, and ensure that recruitment is limited to only those who meet these standards. Only then can we start seeing quality return to our primary schools. 
When I was in secondary school, in form three, my senior taught me agriculture, and I made A1 in the subject. I always give this example. So the quality of the teacher is not just about the qualification, there are some things to consider, such as motivation to do the work. Is the person really interested in the job? Is he prepared for the job? You will find out that most people who find themselves as teachers today will say ‘let me just manage this job until I get a better job.’ That is a major problem. So, effective teacher recruitment would be done by working hand-in-hand with state-level policy makers and academics in a 10-month study. Through the study, EDOREN seeks to identify practical solutions that ‘best fit’ the specific problems faced in Kano and Kaduna states as well as help policy makers improve the teacher recruitment process.

 Why is teaching job never appreciated? 
It is never a better job. Let me give you a beautiful example. A teacher once told me he teaches for almost 12 hours a day, when he goes home, he prepares notes, but he was not paid well.  And because most teachers are not paid on time, they don’t have a house to rent. Landlords will say, ‘you are a teacher, sorry there is no vacancy.’
You heard of the bailout story, where teachers were not paid for over nine months. Who would like to do that kind of Job? So these are issues that also affect who you want to recruit. If I want to be a teacher, and I like the job, when I begin to hear this kind of stories, I will say no to teaching job. Recruitment is also another issue. Who do we recruit to teach?

  Who are the ones recruiting?
They end up recruiting their relations who have nothing to do. If you have a cousin or relation and you don’t know what to do with him/her, you will say, go and teach even when the passion and motivation to do the work is not there. So, the teaching profession has become like a dumping ground for relations but if this trend stops, we may begin to see positive changes.

 As an educationist, what is your assessment of education in Nigeria and why did you choose Kaduna and Kano for the research? 
The focus of DFID projects have been Kaduna and Kano where ESPIN is working, it is more convenient for us as we have done previous studies there, so we have more information. Also Kaduna State is a progressive state, highly progressive in the current dispensation. Kano State has a deputy governor who is an educationist. He is also the commissioner for education.
So there is a conscious effort by the governments of these two states to push education to a higher level. We believe and, I hope sincerely too, that the two states governments will be able to absorb the outcome of this study. Right from the kindergarten stage, the rich people are able to send their children to good schools, privately financed. In that kind of system, there is very little you can get and it is becoming a global problem. But when you read about countries like Norway, education is at the top, because it is education that drives everything else. So without education, you can’t get anything.