In reality, teachers have the most important job in the world. They are arguably the most important members of our society. They give children purpose, set them up for success as citizens of our country and the world, and inspire and drive them to do well and succeed in life. Teachers are that critical point that makes a child ready for their future and their future is the future of the world.
Education is a fundamental aspect in the development of a country. Teachers provide the education that improves the quality of life, and they, therefore, bring so much to both individuals and society as a whole. If the youth of a society is well educated, a future is born. No wonder some headteachers in the UK earn more than the UK Parliament members.
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The White House and several US Governors and State Departments of Education defined teachers as “essential workers” in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic and attention was paid to the need of the teachers. They are not expected to risk their life with this crazy idea that “teachers’ reward is in heaven”.
But it is a different ball game in Nigeria. Teachers, especially in public schools, are the most humiliated and downgraded professionals in Nigeria. They have terrible working conditions and appalling conditions of service. They are not expected to complain. It won’t be heard because the kids of the “Owners of Nigeria” are not in those schools that are now abandoned for the ordinary people.
Their reward is said to be in heaven and they are expected to be comfortable with the life of a pauper in this world, MILT, and wait for heaven. Even people that will never consider a teaching job but a highly paid job will tell you that teachers should just manage the little they are paid after all their reward is in heaven. When you see a teacher, you should be able to identify him by his impoverished look. You see the frustration all over his face. They should not dare to ask the “Owners of Nigeria” to improve their reward in this world. An attempt will lead to salary stoppage as a punishment.
They are expected to shape the life of the ordinary people who constitute over 90% of the population but are not given the right environment to achieve that. How do you intend to make them achieve that or are you just being hypocritical? There is a public outcry on the quality of our graduates in recent times and their employability status. The blames are on the lecturers. But nobody wants to hear the teacher’s side of the story. He is guilty as charged. people have refused to look at the fact that our primary schools, secondary schools, and the universities are broken and the “Owners of Nigeria” are not ready or willing to fix them. They rather isolate their kids and take them abroad or to a private school. How they intend to fix the country with such an attitude is what some of us can’t figure out.
In a recent discussion on my Facebook wall, a commenter said lecturers should not compare themselves with CBN, NNPC, DPR, FIRS, Customs, etc, because they are revenue-generating organizations and deserved to be paid very well to do their job well. Even. The NNPC refinery worker that has not refined a drop of crude oil in several years is also a revenue generator. Amazing! But he forgot that teachers are human capital developers that developed the revenue generators. Is it not logical to pay the human capital developers handsomely so that they develop qualitative revenue generators and the other human resources?
I read a comment from a Senior Lecturer from Usman Danfodio University who claims that the ASUU strike has weakened the education system. He may be right. But he refused to acknowledge that we are still lucky to have got a weak education system, thanks to ASUU. Without the strike, public universities would have long died. He may be possibly too young to understand the role that the union of lecturers has played since the 80s that still gave our public universities a semblance of a university.
On the other hand, Everyone, including parents and students is pleading for ASUU to understand with the government. Of course, they can’t tell the government to do the needful. The “Owners of Nigeria” are beyond their reach. You can’t even protest else they turn it around to hunt you. I saw a trending picture yesterday of a current state governor that was in London with his family for his son’s graduation from the university. You see why the public schools will never be funded except you are able to force them to inject a little against their will.
Some say ASUU is too stubborn and refused to shift ground. Maybe they are right. ASUU should also MILT, join the band of onlookers, and allow the education system to completely crash. Maybe, for now, we should pursue the salary review to a logical conclusion and suspend the university revitalization struggle. ASUU should shift ground and allow the introduction of tuition fees of N300,000 to N500,000 since that is what the government said is the ultimate solution.
The minister of state for education that seems not to understand the operating principles of the university said ASUU cannot dictate to his employer on how he should be paid. After these months of enlightenment, the Minister that wants to be the next president of this country doesn’t even know the limitation of IPPIS in the university system, a system that he is supposed to manage to succeed.
Since Nigerians agreed with NITDA that a 99.3% score in test for UTAS is fail, maybe, we should forget the efforts and the sacrifice we have put up on UTAS to save the public university from the destruction they want to achieve with IPPIS and allow them to use the IPPIS to destroy what is left of the essence of the university which is based on scholarship. Public universities are already poorly funded, let’s allow the further strangulation of the universities with IPPIS. I have never heard of an embargo on employment in any university. Employment is based on university needs. But we have it now, thanks to IPPIS.
You go to our universities and feel that some of the Lecturers have got no business with academics but are employed to teach university students because they know someone? Let the employment of lecturers be controlled by the Accountant General of the Federation who will decide the needs of the universities. Let his office decide on who to employ and when to employ for the universities and our current lecturers will be angels. Our universities are partially isolated from the rest of the world. Let’s work harder to completely isolate them and live with the consequences.
The consequences of the poor education of the people are right here staring at us. If we refused to put our money where our mouths are, we may never be able to create a knowledge-based economy and the budget for security will keep increasing geometrically.
Teacher quality is a critical determinant of student achievement. Therefore, if schools are going to provide high-quality education for a knowledge-based economy, attention must be paid to the needs of their teachers. We need to put our money where our mouths are and support these essential educators so they can do their jobs preparing students for success without putting their life and the future of their students on the line.
Amoka is a Professor of Material and Solid State Physics at the Department of Physics, Ahmadu Bello University Zaria.
