Abhimanyu Singh
19 February 2008
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Lagos — From time immemorial, teachers have been revered as sources of wisdom and inspiration across countries and civilizations. Millions of youth have sat at the feet of Gurus to imbibe knowledge, values and skills that have enabled them to navigate life and work with success.
But never before has the teaching profession been subjected to the kind of challenges and difficulties that the current generation of teachers face, particularly in developing countries such as Nigeria. To overcome these we need to think 'out of the box' and come up with bold innovations and learn from practices and approaches that are known to work well in similar situations.
The teaching profession is under tremendous stress and strain today. The status and morale of teachers are declining in most developing societies while their professionalism and commitment are often called into question by the public at large and parents in particular. While the spread of modern Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and the electronic media have opened up unprecedented opportunities for teachers, these also constitute a perceived threat to their authority as the repositories of knowledge and purveyors of information. There is a severe global shortage of school teachers, estimated to be in the region of 15 million, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to attract the best talent among our youth to this noble profession as the rewards and working conditions are not good enough. Teachers are often subjected to physical violence. The rapid loss of teachers to the HIV and AIDS pandemic in many African countries has compounded the problem.
The proliferation of knowledge and the demands of globalisation require the kind of investment in teacher training that is not forthcoming in poor economies that struggle to meet competing development priorities. Institutional facilities for pre-service and in-service training of school teachers are either inadequate or in a state of neglect. As a result, a large number of teachers are either untrained or poorly trained. Moreover, teacher attrition, especially in the remote and rural areas, has emerged as a major issue to be addressed as the best teachers look for greener pastures in urban areas and are also being lured abroad by better incentives and working conditions.
Business as usual will simply not do. Innovation and experimentation are called for. UNESCO, as the specialised UN agency in education, has been engaging in promoting and supporting change in different parts of the world in partnership with UN agencies and other donors. The school-based management committees, supported by the international development partners in rural schools in Nigeria, have facilitated greater accountability of teachers to parents. UNESCO has established an effective partnership with professional associations of science and Mathematics teachers in Nigeria (STAN and MAN) and selected Colleges of Education for training of teachers in Effective Learning Techniques and the use of Science and Mathematics kits.
Several developing countries have experimented with rapid community-based recruitment and training of teachers to overcome the shortage of teachers in remote and inaccessible areas. The lower qualifications of such teachers have been off-set by continuous training during vacations and school breaks through mobile teams of subject specialists who visit schools and provide support to teachers in classrooms. This expands the notion of pre and in-service training to on-service training! Education specialists and visiting experts have been impressed by the commitment and sincerity of local teachers who reside in the neighbourhood and are in constant touch with parents whose children play truant. This has also stimulated interest of local communities in the quality of education imparted to their children and motivated them to contribute in cash and kind to improve school amenities including buildings, furniture and toilets.
Many countries in the developed and developing world have expanded training opportunities by using Open Universities to educate and train teachers at a distance in their own space and time. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has taken the lead in adopting open course-ware policy that provides easy access at no cost to state-of-the-art learning materials to learners across the world. The Commonwealth of Learning (COL), Vancouver has invested a great deal of time, effort and funds, since its establishment in 1989, to improve the quality of teacher education through distance learning.
These examples are the tip of the iceberg. It is for Nigeria to study and adapt some of the approaches and experiments outlined above as well as others to motivate and train their teachers to meet the challenges of the twenty first century. This will require political vision and leadership of a high order backed by requisite funding by Federal and State governments. Partnerships with civil society and the private sector are essential. Teachers must also commit themselves to seeking excellence in their profession and bring greater discipline to their work.
There is no substitute to governments investing more to improve the remuneration, working and living conditions of teachers so as to attract and retain better qualified and motivated teachers. A fair and transparent reward and incentive system is indispensable. Accountability of teachers has to be improved by developing a Code of Conduct for supporting ethical behaviour and punishing aberrations. In this context the forum for social dialogue between Government and Teachers Associations in the country, with support from UNESCO and other stakeholders should be strengthened.
On its part UNESCO has recently launched the Teacher Training Initiative in Sub-Saharan Africa (TTISSA) to improve and strengthen the capacity for teacher training in 46 countries. Nigeria, as one of the pilot countries, should position itself to derive the maximum advantage from this and other initiatives of UN agencies and donors.
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