About 21,780 out of 33,000 teachers have failed the primary four examination administered to test the competence of primary school teachers by the Kaduna State government.
Owing to the mass failure, the El-Rufai led state government is now shopping for 25,000 new teachers as one of the plans to restore quality to public elementary education in Kaduna State.
My question(s):
Where are we, how did we get to this and what are the remedies?
A friend of mine wrote:
“I keep saying it and saying it again, in as much as the teachers have their share of blame, the state government has a higher % share of the blame.
Why?
1. It is employer’s duty to continuously train employee.
2. The state government have been defaulting on re-training its teachers
3. Due to the nature of the human brains, what you don’t use regularly you forfeit it.
4. A teacher teaching other classes apart from grade 4 would most likely fail the test. If you doubt it go and try WAEC mathematics now and see if you can still remember factorization.
5. Faulty Human Resource process. In some cases the teachers did not qualify for the job but we have used corrupt ways to hire them
6. Quota system has always made the Northerners assume they don’t have to be as good as the Southerners after all with a low score they would be admitted in university.
7. Even if El-Rufai led government succeeds in sacking the teachers, have they considered the social economic factors of making over 22 thousand people jobless! What are the impacts of this on their families and dependent ?
Does Kaduna state government have enough funds to pay their compensations and gratuities in lump sum ?
A good lawyer may instigate a class action suit that the state government may not recover from.
8. El-Rufai needs to think outside the box and find a solution and at this rate he may not win a second term..
My reply:
I quite agree to all above, but some things should be looked into:
1. Are these guys trainable..when was the last time they went in teachers training?
On what basis were they employed and based on what qualification’s? What plan do they have for recruiting and training teachers.. What curriculum are they following?
2. Even if you sack these ones, what plans do you have for those retained?
3. What is the salary scale of these guys? Are they even paid on time and in commiserate with private school teachers? Are their pension scheme in place for them? What really is motivation for these guys apart from the fact that their reward is in heaven as they say?
4. I quite understand the part of social economic factor but should we continue to carry bad wagons without value to life and kids they are training?
5. How are these guys employed in the first instance? Go to schools now all over it’s NYSC corpers they use as teachers the more.
Again, are these guys really teachers or make shift teachers?
Cram and teach..after a couple of months, the NYSC pass out and schools go back to square one.
In as much as I like the fact that the teacher’s that failed should be sacked, there should be alternative work for them even if you have to take them to farming and empower them.
We need to develop our teacher training schools, upgrade our faculties of education in universities and train train train our people. Technology is there to use as an enabler.
Quota system should be scrapped in all sphere of government and recruit based on merit and intelligence. Meritocracy instead of Mediocrity!
Some things to understand and we need to ask ourselves:
Government need to help and ensure that:
1. The teacher designs effective, standards-based instruction, i.e. the lesson plan is mapped to state standards, with clear goal(s) and objectives, and students tasks.
2. The teacher delivers high-quality, student-centered instruction, i.e. instruction and facilitation of learning is clear, well-paced, and utilizes research-based strategies.
3: The teacher promotes high levels of student engagement, i.e. the teacher creates an environment that promotes a high level of student involvement in their learning.
4: The teacher uses assessment for student learning, i.e. the teacher must develop clear assessment strategies for assessing students before, during and after the lesson.
5. The teacher uses a positive behavior management strategy, i.e. expectations of student behavior are clear and the teacher monitors behavior in a manner which is subtle, positive, and preventive.
6: There is clear evidence that students are learning, i.e. evidence of students, learning is explicit and observable.
Create Research Questions :
What are the factors that affect teacher quality practices?
Inadequate facilities to help achieve instructional objectives
Lack of seminar and workshop opportunities that enhances teaching and discipline of pupils
Delay in paying teachers’ salary
Lack of promotion as and when due
Impositions from school management educational boards and educational offices
And so on…
Even where you have good and educated teachers, other factor that could affect their performances to effectively and efficiently carry out the following duties include:
Adequate preparations for lesson teach the number of periods allocated on the timetable, regularly and punctually;
Keep the teaching records;
Sees to the cleanliness of the classrooms and its environment;
Maintains discipline among his students in and outside the class.
Check and mark notes given to the students regularly.
Sets, marks, records, class assignments, tests and examination scripts promptly.
Properly invigilate both internal and external examinations.
Attends staff, P.T.A. and other meetings regularly, punctually and partakes actively in them.
Marks the attendance register daily and takes note of the absentees.
Sees to the welfare of every student in the class.
Prepares the continuous assessment booklet and the class master’ sheet.
Carries out other assignments given to him by the school authority.
And much more.
Government needs to take serious Audi and periodic test on our teachers and his they perform.
Education is the bedrock of any development and if from early stage teachers don’t even know what they are teaching, students are half baked..then what society do we think we are going to have???
Written by AAA