ADDRESSING SHORTAGE OF TEACHERS
The states should pay adequate attention to basic education
Referencing the Universal Basic Education Commission 2024 report, the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) President, Titus Amba, confirmed last week that there is a shortage of 194,876 teachers in public primary schools across the country, while the situation in the secondary education sub-sector is also dire. “Available statistics showed an alarming manpower crisis in primary and secondary schools, especially in the rural areas,” said Amba who decried the removal of the Teachers’ Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN) from the federal government’s budgetary allocation.
Amba has merely echoed the former UBEC Executive Secretary, Hamid Bobboyi who once drew attention to the deficiencies in the country’s basic education sector. “It is worrisome to note that apart from the new retirement age (of 65) for teachers, which has been implemented by 22 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, other approvals made in 2020 are yet to be implemented,” according to Amba who expressed concern over policies that promote the privatisation of education in a manner that makes it more a business enterprise than a social problem that requires serious government intervention. “The well-being of educators is crucial to attract new ones and tackle the teacher shortage.”
Available reports indicate that over 47 million pupils currently enrolled in 171,000 private and public primary and junior secondary schools across the country are taught by some 354,650 teachers, many of whom are unqualified. The problem is exacerbated by the non-recruitment of fresh teachers by many state governments. About 18 states have also not deemed it fit to recruit teachers in the last five years, even with about 20 per cent surge in classroom enrolments. Some of these states, according to the NUT are Abia, Bayelsa, Bauchi, Benue, Cross River, Ebonyi, Edo, Gombe, Jigawa, Kano, Kogi, Ogun, Plateau, Rivers, Taraba, and Zamfara. The result of inadequate recruitment of teachers in the face of growing population of school children is aggravated teacher-pupil ratio, which has in turn led to overcrowded classrooms and reduced attention for individual pupils.
The situation is worse in many of the rural communities, especially in the North, where schools have no teachers, leaving the children to their own devices. Such is the neglect of public education at the most basic level that most of the available teachers are themselves near-illiterate. The immediate past governor of Kaduna, Nasir el-Rufai, once resorted to mass sacking of more than 21,000 teachers in the state’s primary education board on account of incompetence. The lack of qualified teachers is accentuated in many rural communities by other unattractive learning environment. Classrooms are an essential commodity with the result that children study under trees. In the urban centres that have the luxury of being provided with classrooms, many of them are dilapidated with leaking roofs and cracked walls.
There is a consensus that the deplorable state of education in the country is traceable to the fact that politicians do not care about fixing the sector because they can afford to send their children to posh private schools. Many state governments have refused to take teachers’ professional development as a priority despite collecting 10 per cent of UBEC grants for such purposes. Many conveniently abandon the hefty sum from UBEC because of the 50 per cent matching grant that they are expected to provide for projects. Yet the provision of quality and affordable education is one of the sacred duties of government since they provide the needed human capital necessary for development.
We urge the states to reorder their priorities by paying more attention to primary education in terms of provision of basic infrastructure, teachers and teaching tools. But this is an emergency that should be addressed urgently by all critical stakeholders in Nigeria’s educational sector.
