THE TEACHING PROFESSION IN THE MUD
by Kay Yusuf Sanni
Having helped schools conduct job interviews and appraised existing teachers; having worked for years in private schools- both as teachers and head; and having had the opportunity of working (to date) with veteran teachers in a public school, I am left with no other option than to unrepentantly conclude that the education sector of Nigeria is comatose- almost beyond remedy.
Good teachers who passionately took up the job are yearning to bid farewell to the sector should a better-offer surface. Sound minds who are knowledgeably competent and methodically fantastic to make a classroom fun-filled are not willing to take up the job, because of the meagerness of salary. Unfortunately, the teaching job is now being entrusted in the hands of individuals who unavoidably found themselves in the industry on account of unemployment frustration. Read BEING A TEACHER PAYS
The teaching profession – unlike in those days of yore- is no more handled with passion. Most teachers, especially in the private schools, are either passionless or incompetent. They aren’t doing the job heartily, neither are they deriving joy in it. Apparently, such teachers can NEVER make educational goals and objectives achieved in any teaching-learning activity. And these are the people preparing students for WAEC, NECO, UTME etc.
Students preparing to go to study in the universities are not moved to choose education for a course. The stereotype that rings in their thoughts is that the teaching profession is specially branded for the wretched, the penurious. After all, they can see teachers around who worked for years without formidable assets of their own, unlike other professionals who have relatively amassed wealth just after a few years of their starting. Even those in the faculties of education in universities and colleges aren’t dreaming to practice as teachers, but to end up in other professions. Read 5 REASONS NIGERIAN STUDENTS PERFORM EXCELLENTLY ABROAD BUT FAIL TO DO SAME IN NIGERIAN UNIVERSITIES
If a level-8 medical doctor could get up to, if not more than One hundred and twenty thousand naira per month, why would a teacher on the same level be offered fifty thousand naira? If a doctor makes a mistake on a patient, it is the patient that will suffer the pains. But if a teacher makes a mistake in the class, the mistake may continue till eternity, because the students will obviously pass it on to generations. The work of a teacher is more sacred and delicate than any other work. Read BEING A TEACHER PAYS
The only way Nigeria can get its education sector right is to make the job lucrative by paying teachers well.
