Today's Teachers are in the Profession to Keep Body and Soul Together-Prof. Olagoke

Nigerians are unanimous in their clamor for the re-introduction of Teacher Training Colleges as part of the efforts to salvage the falling standard of education in the country from total collapse.

Indeed, a sizable number of teachers have overtime exhibited tendencies and behaviors not in line with the dictates of the noble profession, while pupils and students alike have emulated same.

In this interview, the Founder, Spiritual Head and Grand Imam of Shafaudeen-in-Islam Wordlwide, Prof. Sabitu Olagoke insists that present day teachers are in the noble profession for the purposes of survival not for the love of the profession. Excerpts :

Do you think the re-introduction of Teacher Training Colleges would play a significant role in salvaging the falling standard of education in Nigeria ?

The policy makers over the years in Nigeria have displayed a high level of over zealousness when it comes to adopting to adapt new trends in the areas of advancement in education.

They failed to look inwards, our cultural background and the needs of the society. The basic background that could be traced to 6–5–4 system of education, whereby the five years in the secondary school could be augmented with advanced level classes, before proceeding into the universities. This was far better mainly because it was effectively managed in terms of teachers and the facilities needed on ground. Some people may adduce this to the fewer number of schools and teachers as well as fewer population of students to cope with then.

The greatest advantages then, were the people’s appreciation of the value of education, the immediate opportunity for graduates to be absorbed from the labor market as well as the best discipline on offer as a necessary prerequisite that would enable seriousness in learning.

It was an era when boarding schools were facility laden with trustworthy house masters.

It was also a period when religious houses were sacred for the much needed vitamins of the fear of God for the teachers and the students.

However, with the advancement of education, it was good to discontinue the use of auxiliary teachers, most of whom were more matured and committed in the classrooms, than today’s graduates, most of whom are unhappy with the teaching profession, but for economic survival, take the teaching job to keep body and soul together.

The establishment of the Universal Primary Education(UPE) for which Teacher Training Colleges became popular, was a very good policy in the right direction.

The graduates were basically trained on the methodology of teaching in education, the preparation of lesson notes and the keeping of records in an environment of high level of discipline and respect for constituted authority with a high level of focus on building a happy home in which future leaders for the society in particular and nation as a whole must be brought up.

Graduates of the Teacher Training Colleges were fully committed to the profession and were always time conscious with respect to punctuality and regularity at work. They were always ready to be directed and managed by their Headmasters or Principals, whose instructions must be obeyed and who happened to be graduates of universities, most of whom took courses in education at the post graduate level, with Grade I and II qualifications in their kitty before acquiring university education.

Headmasters and Teachers were then role model parents who believed in working for government for good, holding tenaciously to the principles of transparency and accountability.

Government would have left this phase of our educational institutions when creating the Colleges of Education, rather than phasing it out.

They ought to have restricted the activities of graduates of Teacher Training Colleges to the grassroots level of Primary Schools, while those in Colleges of Education would have been trained for the Junior Secondary Schools in the 6–3–3–4 education system.

While graduates of universities and probably Polytechnics at the HND level all with technical bias towards specific vocations, with some knowledge in entrepreneurship studies would have been prepared to manage our Secondary schools. With this arrangement based on relevant disciplines and subjects, the instructional facet of all segments of our educational levels would have been appropriately captured and fixed. This is because graduates of each sector of our lines of educational development and structure have good opportunities of resorting to, based on their capacity and capability at the time, apprenticeship for artisan ship, vocation and entrepreneurship for possible self job creation ability and promotion of employment opportunities for others, to lessen the pressure on graduates hustle for white collar jobs.

The mistake made in the phasing out of the Teacher Training Colleges, is the present mistake that is about to be repeated in the case of the Technical Colleges, which would have served the nation if well funded and equipped in the following areas :

1. Foundational step to engineering and other professional technical appreciation needs.
2. It would have been a technical forum to train our artisans, who control our economy on the need for skill acquisition and proficiency needs. The class would have been for the development of initiative, innovation and creativity as and a center for talent discovery.

Generally, Nigeria’s policymakers, most especially in the areas of education, must always take cognizance of our background and our needs for our graduates to be relevant directly in the areas of community service, society development and nation building.

After all, all our professional bodies have family pyramid structure. For example, craftsmanship, technicians, technologists and corporate membership. All of them are yet to take care of sectors of artisan ship for proficiency needs while their fellow cadres are yet to be specifically saddled with serious assignments of mentor ship, research and development .

Suffice it now to say, that no segment of our educational system like the Teacher Training and Technical Colleges should be phased out or neglected because our developmental needs in Nigeria have not outgrown them.

The two sectors would have assisted us in bridging the gap between the needed strong foundation and the advanced stages of education and development.

In the area of affective education, happenings in our schools, Primary, Secondary and Universities are characterized by examination malpractices, sex-for-marks scandals, cultism, admission racketeering among others. All these portends that the goal of education regarding our attitudinal correction are yet to be effected.

Kleptocracy in governance equally reflects in the activities of these graduates, old or new, as an attestation that there is not no single impact of what they learned in their behavior.

In the area of cognitive education, there is a misplacement of priorities. For example, we have failed to run effectively our Polytechnic system as a result of a lack of facility update for research and development and the training need of students to be in tandem with the necessary industrial essence with what obtains in companies.

Nigerian graduates still need to undergo a lot of training before they can be certified fit for employment in industries.

Why is it that Nigeria is just realizing the need for technical universities ?

To what extent have our Schools and Universities of Agriculture served the nation in terms of poverty alleviation and eradication ?

Why is it that there is still limited spaces for successful candidates, who passed the UTME and post UTME in the educational institutions in the country ?

Recently, China retraced its steps, on the need to survive through the development of technical education and technological development, by converting 600 of its universities into polytechnics while Nigeria is on the verge of collapsing the HND certificate program.

Policy making must go beyond the rhetoric of politics because it is about the life of our people and the future of the nation.