Who is teaching the teachers?

 

I recall a conversation I had with my father many years ago as a young child. He explained to me that in his time, the best graduating students were snapped up immediately for teaching jobs as Assistant Lecturers and Research Assistants in their Universities and encouraged with scholarships to undertake Masters Degrees and Doctorates. Those who were not so academically inclined went on to work in corporate and public sector institutions.

In our times, it is a complete reversal, University lecturers and school teachers today consist mostly of those who were not necessarily the brightest stars in school, but went back to teaching as a means of survival (wetin man go do) or because they were “yes men” to their own lecturers, and decided to continue in their comfort zones. The brightest stars are snapped up immediately by the big oil prospecting companies and banks and most of the people left in the ivory towers and in schools are significantly ill-equipped to do the very important work of teaching.

 

In all our efforts to re-position education, a lot of emphasis is being placed on ensuring that teachers deployed in schools are certified, while this might be a useful proposition, the question I dare to ask is “Who is teaching these teachers?”. Recently, I got a shocking answer from a friend who says his wife decided to act on her life-long desire to become a teacher after many years in “industry” and decided to enroll in a Post graduate diploma program in education so that she would be armed with all she needs to launch herself into a career in her area of passion.

Many years later, his wife has not graduated from the program because her lecturer demanded a bribe for her exam or final project to be graded. So, it is clear where the vicious cycle of corruption that has engulfed our educational system comes from, after all we can only “give” what we ‘have” – a student of corruption is more likely to become a teacher of corruption, save for the Grace of God and the better choices that the person decides to make.

 

I tell parents all the time to be cautious about their expectations from Schools these days and I encourage school owners who are in education for the right reasons to also be cognizant that when it comes to teaching talent: the grass isn’t at all greener on the other side. The quality of teachers in our society today is abysmally poor, and if you expect your children’s teachers to be effective just because you pay some high school fees – you had better have your head examined. Most teachers today struggled in their own school days and perhaps didn’t even like “book” themselves – it is no surprise that they set very low standards for student performance, and are willing to cooperate with desperate parents to guarantee their children’s performance. Likewise, if school owners get frustrated with the teachers they have and think that there are better ones outside, then they too should be prepared for a rude shock. Fire all your teachers and poach new ones, you will find that the talent pool in itself is significantly weak – the answer lies in hiring for attitude, and investing significantly in training, quality assurance and effective supervision to build the skills.

 

So, wherein lies to solution to this revolving door of problems – I will have to land it squarely at the foot of those who are responsible for the leadership and governance of schools and educational institutions, and advocate that they begin to do some things to transform education in our society.

 

We need to stop talking about “qualified teachers”, and believing that because someone has a degree in Education, or a National Certificate in Education that the person is qualified to teach. Let us stop focusing on these narrow definitions of “qualification” and embark on a more aggressive campaign to improve teaching skills by paying attention to on-going Professional Development and Teacher Education driven not by the half-baked academics that have taken over our tertiary institutions, but by an elite corps of professionals who have been successful in other disciplines and have a passion for education. I mean when people want to make this distinction between those who have educational qualifications and those that do not, I quickly remind them that the University lecturers who are at the highest level of education have Research Degrees and not education Degrees and yet are expected to function, so why should we think someone with a MBA will be ill-equipped to teach in a secondary, just because he does not have a degree in education!

 

Let us declare a State of Emergency in Education by appropriating more funds to education – not in terms of large buildings and theatres that end up becoming run-down monuments as is typical of so many of the structures that TETFUND has put up in many Tertiary Institutions today. Rather let us use more of our education budget on attracting better professionals to become teachers, paying teachers better, subsidizing the efforts of private educational institutions (instead of forcing them to be registered as limited liability companies and requiring them to pay taxes) and implementing a more robust program for teacher education and development.

 

Finally, we need to encourage more people outside the traditional school system to get involved with teaching and lecturing and do away with some of the stereotypes and barriers that block “lay men” who have the passion, skills and talent for teaching and education from doing so. Once, a well certified educator referred to my colleague and I as “internet authors” because we wrote a book on leadership for children, and a quick glance at our profiles showed we didn’t have degrees in education! How myopic! One of the root causes of our problems with education is our teachers, we need to fix them: better teachers = better pupils = better future.

 

Omagbitse Barrow is a teacher and author in the area of Life Skills for Children.