‘Motivated teachers give better results’

What is your take on the admission policy of having different cut of marks for the various states in unity schools?The admission policy of the Federal Government is based on quota and merit. These are the two major criteria I know. I think there is a need to address that particular policy. In the past, […]

What is your take on the admission policy of having different cut of marks for the various states in unity schools?
The admission policy of the Federal Government is based on quota and merit. These are the two major criteria I know. I think there is a need to address that particular policy. In the past, you could get somebody from Sokoto to attend a school in Bayelsa, somebody from Bayelsa moved to Borno; you could see physically what government wanted to achieve. The essence which was unity was seen by all.
Nowadays, people you see who are from other states are people living around the school. If you take Bwari for instance, the parents of most students there are living around there. Same everywhere, but I believe we should do what NYSC is doing where you don’t have a choice of where you want to school because it is unity school.
You want the ability to choose schools to be removed?
Yes, I want that removed and for us to make it just like the NYSC. Even if somebody cannot go too far, move away from your residential state or state of origin to another place so that there will be a difference.
How do you rate the quality of the unity schools?
The standard is okay but it is not like it used to be. In the past 15 to 20 years, when the SSCE result is released, you see almost every child getting the required credits and above. Nowadays, it is no longer like that;you are even praying to get one or two excellent results.
However, the major problem could be the mode of entrance because from what you give in, it is every difficult for you to get an excellent result from a very poor start. In the past, it was mostly on merit. It would not be easy for the teachers to mould and get that kind of excellent result we got in the past.
Do you think that teachers today are motivated enough to teach as they used to?
People say teachers rewards are in heaven, teachers don’t look at it that way. No matter how dedicated and committed, if you are motivated, you get a better result.
How do you get it right with regards to staff motivation?
The Federal Government approved Teachers Salary Structure (TSS) or peculiar allowance if you like, but what happens to the teachers in unity schools? They are not getting it; they are not being paid this peculiar allowance coupled with these other facilities that we are not enjoying. I can’t even remember when last workshops and seminars were organized. It is a problem.
In the past, students finish secondary school, especially technical ones and are employable and productive but today it is not the case, what happened to that system?
If the educational policy that we are using is no longer giving us the result that will make our people employable, there is a need to change it. Technical or vocational education is the way out. If that is done, once a child graduates, the person is employed. For example, a child who can repair computer upon graduation will not start roaming the streets committing acts of violence. Even if the child is not going further, he would have something to fall back on and I think that is the way out.
Could it be that the technical schools don’t have equipment and are not properly supervised?
 We have one at Orozo here; the majority of the students are just doing what we call the conventional courses. There is no particular attention paid to technical education. In fact, upon graduation, most of them may not be able to do much. I don’t know whether it is because the equipment are not there but I think that from what we have there on the ground, if the Federal Government insist on that policy, we can start from there then improve on that. That is the only way out.
But all these things are not followed maybe because evaluation system in our school is no longer there. Nobody is monitoring anything again nowadays, if you don’t monitor, how do you get the quality that you seek? We have an inspectorate division in the federal ministry of education, as far as I am concerned, they are not doing the job. Most of the time they don’t go out to evaluate, they don’t go out to inspect, so, how would the quality improve?
 There is this widespread belief that the unity school has been priced out of the reach of those who it was initially set up to cater for.
Well, the claim is somehow close to the truth especially on admission. When a child gains admission in a unity school, it is a different ball game. What the child pays is so high some of us don’t feel comfortable. However, in fairness to the Federal Government, the approved fee, which is the feeding fee because we don’t pay tuition in unity schools, is very reasonable. You begin to wonder where the fee is coming from; it comes in in terms of PTA levy, development levy and others.
The PTA levy is even not supposed to be compulsory but why is it now compulsory for everybody when it is not everybody that can afford it? Some feel the Federal Government colleges should be a way out for them because they are poor and even though some can afford it, you shouldn’t make it compulsory. The Federal Government should look into the fees being paid and peg it. Since they are not paying school fees, why should we have these exorbitant charges; you are paying for bed, you are paying for chair and by the end of the day you don’t even carry any of these things home.
Teachers in the unity school have been complaining for long that when benefits come for teachers, the ministry of education tells them they are civil servants, if benefits come for civil servants they are told they are teachers, thereby not getting anything. What is the true position?
The issue has to do with the union. Some of us somehow when we got the job found ourselves in the Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria (ASCSN) not knowing what union was all about. At a stage, there was a move for the TSS and we were happy and even in 1998, the then minister of education told the world that the Federal Government was ready to pay that salary structure to federal teachers but that the state should go and arrange and when they are set, Federal Government would pay.
They went on strike, when it was restored and approved, we were happy because he had given us assurance.  Some states started paying, we were not paid by the Federal Government; what is happening? We started hearing that we were civil servants and not teachers, claiming we were employed as education officers; we kept quiet because teachers don’t easily fight.
In 2012, the Federal Government said that for some reasons, federal civil servants are going to be given what is called 13th month allowance. We found out that other civil servants were given including our colleagues in the ministry. We asked where our own 13th month was, they said we were teachers and the allowance was for civil servants. We said enough is enough; you said we were civil servants in the past, now you are saying we are teachers, where do we belong? We started asking questions and we decided that we must belong to the appropriate group because if you say we are employed by the Federal Government and therefore we are not teachers, we are education officers but now you are not giving us our benefits, what about the nurses, the nature of their employment and ours is same, they are in the civil service and they are getting special allowance. We decided to belong to our professional union because we are teachers and we approached the Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT) which has accepted us and we feel at home there.
We approached the ministry of labour and they couldn’t say whether we were teachers or not; you see the Nigerian factor here, how can you look at us and say we are not teachers. They could not come out and say that unity school teachers are teachers or not. They referred the case to the National Industrial Court. We have very high hopes that the court will do justice to our case and we are also calling on our members to keep calm and keep doing their work pending the time the case is resolved.