To
stem the rot in the Nigeria’s educational system, especially at the
tertiary level, the Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has called for a
shutdown of all tertiary institutions for two years to enable
government and the stakeholders address the inherent rot.
Soyinka had made a similar call in the 8os, but his suggestion was not heeded.
He repeated the call today at the start of a two-day Rivers State Education Summit in Port Harcourt.
Soyinka
lamented the decline in the sector. He said the crisis in the tertiary
institutions has reached its lowest ebb and therefore needs a radical
approach to the problem.
The Rivers State Governor, Chibuike
Rotimi Amaechi concurred with Soyinka’s diagnosis, but he did not
state whether he would shut the tertiary schools under his watch.
He
however directed the State Commissioner for Education, Ms Alice Nemi
to issue letters of employment to the 13,000 teachers recruited last
year to teach in the new model primary schools across the State.
Governor
Amaechi said it has become important to bring in the newly engaged
teachers to teach in the model Schools given the poor performances of
the present crop of teachers in the Schools.
He lamented that
despite the radical reforms he had introduced in the sector after
declaring a state of emergency 2008, there is inherent poor management
of Government owned Schools in the State ‘’which has been the bane of
poor performances of students and pupils in the State’’.
He said
‘’education is a right of every Nigerian. We are not far away from the
rot we inherited from the education system. The management of the
Schools is very poor. We virtually pay for everything but teachers are
bent on collecting money from Pupils and Students with impunity.”
Amaechi
said the State Government decided to take over the payment of primary
teachers’ salaries from the local Government Council to remove the
burden on them and stressed that the quality assurance management board
will be set up to assess and evaluate the performances of Schools in the
State.
In a key note address presented at the summit a former
Vice Chancellor of University of Ibadan Professor Ayo Banjo advocated
for Two measures that can ensure an effective work force at both primary
and secondary tiers are effective supervision and constant re-training
of teachers.
He said that in the past the ministries of education
maintained a vigorous inspectorate division,which was so strict that
they were a terror in the schools. The effect was that teachers were
kept on their toes because they could never predict when the bogey-man
would turn up.
Prof. Banjo said that because of the Inspectors, Headmasters similarly kept a strict eye on their teachers.
The
absence of the Inspectorate department appears to have led to
dereliction of duty, particularly in the primary schools, on the part of
so-called teachers, who apparently have hardly any interest in teaching
and guiding their pupils but are on a constant watch-out for a
better-paid jobs elsewhere.
He also called for effective remuneration of teachers as a way of encouraging them.
He
said the inevitable surge in the number of Schools has resulted in loss
of status for teachers who he said lack motivation and have become
demoralized.
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