Still on Kaduna’s sacked teachers

A.P.K. Abdul Kalam, the late scientist who later became the eleventh President of India, is credited with the saying that teaching is a very noble profession that shapes the character, calibre, and future of an individual. He noted that if the people remember him as a good teacher, that will be the biggest honour for […]

A.P.K. Abdul Kalam, the late scientist who later became the eleventh President of India, is credited with the saying that teaching is a very noble profession that shapes the character, calibre, and future of an individual. He noted that if the people remember him as a good teacher, that will be the biggest honour for him. In other words, Abdul Kalam preferred to be remembered as a teacher more than he would want to be remembered as President.

From another perspective, the ancient Greek philosopher and scientist, Aristotle, was also credited with the words: “Those who educate the children well are more to be honoured than they who produce them; for these only gave them life, those the art of living well.” Therefore, if teaching provides an art of living for the individual being taught, it behoves on the part of the teacher to see the profession as a moral duty; as a service to humanity through which a more peaceful and beautiful world can be realized.

In addition to being very skilful and proficient in the subject being taught, the great teacher is expected to infuse a lasting memory on the student such that the student remembers and appreciates them forever. Thus, the greatest teachers are those who inspire their students toward achieving greatness. A great teacher should possess an engaging personality, a great teaching style, clear objectives for their lessons, promote the student’s positive behaviour, ensure good management skills to facilitate effective study and work habits, possess good communication skills, be encouraging of students to perform optimally, have a passion for teaching and working with children, etc.

While all these qualities are important, the knowledge of the subject matter, which may seem obvious, cannot be disregarded. Not only are great teachers incredibly knowledgeable in their disciplines, they also should be enthusiastic enough to attend to the student’s inquisitiveness while making the subject continuously interesting for the student.

Over the past several decades, the value of knowledge received by pupils in both public primary and secondary schools across Nigeria has gone downhill. A major indicator of this reality is the incessant cries of the public toward the Senior School Certificate Examination results. As it is generally accepted that amongst other things, teacher quality is a dominant factor that influences student’s performance, an explicit correlation can be made between the persistent failure of students and the already plunging standard of education in the country.

Aside from teacher quality as a domineering factor, the student’s attitude, the government’s lack of proper attention, the parent’s laxity toward their children’s education, etc., could account for some of the minor factors that weigh against student performance in Nigeria.

But while huge sums of money have been invested for the enhancement of teacher quality across many states of Nigeria in the past years, the improvements (when evaluated based on enhanced pupil attainments) are very poor. The indices from a survey of teacher quality in Kaduna State is a recent case in point. Upon Nasir El-Rufai’s assumption of office as governor of the state, a directive was issued to evaluate the quality of teachers across the state’s public primary and secondary schools. This was coming after a previous government in the state led by the late Patrick Yakowa gave a five-year window for under-qualified teachers to acquire the Nigeria Certificate in Education (NCE) and dismissed about 4000 teachers who were found to be in possession of fake certificates. As the five-year window expired in 2015, the El-Rufai administration conducted a survey of teacher competence, but the outcome of that survey turned out to be even more disastrous than it was discovered during the Yakowa administration.

The report on the survey showed that 83 percent of teachers scored less than 25 percent in the literacy and arithmetic exams. In the same survey, the competence level of the pupils was evaluated, and the outcome was that primary two pupils scored an average of 14 percent in literacy and 17 percent in arithmetic. Between the scores of the teachers and their pupils, one is left confused as to who should teach who.

Thus far, the outcome of the El-Rufai administration’s survey led to the sacking of over 22,000 teachers in the state. These were the selective figures of those who were dismissed because their scores in the survey suggestedthat they were unqualified to teach. Additionally, further steps were taken to address the systemic collapse in the education sector by training and retraining of some teachers who achieved relatively better scores than the unqualified ones.

Many months after this incident, according to some online media reports, the sacked teachers are said to be conducting congregated prayers and supplication sessions to implore God’s intervention for the downfall of El-Rufai, who they perceive as archenemy. What the teachers are not acknowledging is that if they are incompetent in their jobs, they have no business being on the jobs at all. Regarding this epic, on the part of the state government, I am not even sure that there is the need to applaud El-Rufai for the decision to sack the teachers, as by doing so, he has hardly done anything remarkable. What is remarkable in sacking people from jobs that they don’t have the competence to handle? All over the world, incompetent people are sacked from their jobs and competent ones are used as their replacements.

We shouldn’t be shocked when people are sacked from jobs they are incompetent in executing, but we should be shocked at how they were hired for the jobs initially. When people start getting bowled over actions that constitutes normalcy, it affirms that their society is one that has functioned abnormally for too long, and therefore needs rescue.

There is no need to get emotional over standards of education and scholarship. When you think about the ‘multiplier effect’ that 22,000 barely literate teachers pose on the future of Nigeria, you wouldn’t get emotional over their sack. The effort of educating the future generation must be conducted the way it ought to be done. Granted, you can argue that the teachers are married, and they have children to cater for by the (unjustified) earnings they have received all along. But were they employed on the supposition that they were married with children or on the fact that they were supposed to be competent teachers?

People keep their jobs because they are competent in executing the jobs not because of their ability to get married and have children. Teaching should not be their only means of livelihood. They can fend for their families by other means that are not at the disadvantage of our country’s future.