States recruit political thugs as teachers – Rep

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Written by  Segun Olatunji, Kaduna

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House of Representatives Committee on Education, Mr. Farouk LawanFile

Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Education, Mr. Farouk Lawan, on Monday accused state governments of recruiting political thugs in place of qualified teachers for elections in their states.

Lawan, who lamented the dearth of qualified teachers in the nation’s primary schools, added that the problem had been compounded by the politicisation of teachers’ recruitment by states.

The lawmaker said this when he led other members of the House Committee on Education to the National Teachers’ Institute, Kaduna.

He condemned a situation where the teaching profession had become a dumping ground for political thugs and other job seekers.

Lawan expressed regret that the recruitment of teachers had been politicised in the country.

He said, “People now use  teachers recruitment for political expediency. Thugs that were used in the elections, simply because they needed to be engaged are recruited and given the responsibility to go and teach and teaching requires a higher level of moral responsibility. The teachers are supposed to be looked upon by the Children as a role model.”

The lawmaker noted that it had become imperative for states and local government councils to invest in the training and retraining of teachers. He added, “it is the responsibility of the states and local government to train the teachers. It is not the responsibility of the Federal Government.

“But thank God that the Federal Government is intervening and that should be seen as complimentary. If the states and local government do what they are supposed to do by investing in the training and retraining of teachers, our educational system will develop.

“What you do is very crucial to the success of our development objective, but we need to do more. You said that you have trained 140,000 teachers; but you and I know that the number of teachers that needs to be trained is much higher. What you are doing is very important, but there is the need to do more.

“Good and quality teacher, teaching and learning will be interesting even if the infrastructures are not good. In the same vein, if you have quality infrastructure and the quality of teachers is bad, teaching and learning will be difficult.”

Lawan assured that the House Committee would protect the interest of the NTI and ensure that it continued to discharge its responsibility of training teachers for the nation’s schools.

The NTI Director General, Dr. Aminu Sharehu, told the members of the House Committee that the institute produced about 20 per cent of the teachers in the nation’s school system through in-service training.

Sharehu stated that the institute had lately come under serious public scrutiny, attributing this to the low level of public awareness and perception of the Open Distance Learning system in Nigeria which he regretted had often led to stigmatisation and low rating of teachers produced by the institute.

The NTI boss argued that the ODL system was an innovative approach aimed at bringing education to the doorsteps of the people through cost effective means as well as to widen access to education and offering opportunity for in-service training and lifelong learning.

SOURCE: Punch Newspaper, 13 December 2011. http://punchontheweb.com/