Education standards are reflective of the quality of teachers

A school is only as good as its teachers.’

This sounds like a simple statement doesn’t it? Simple as it might be, it is surprising to hear feedback from some parents and review the strategies developed by some leaders in the education sector, which do not place strong enough focus on this statement’s importance and its influence on their decision making processes.

I worked with the Ministry of Education of a certain State government some time ago. My mandate was to help them develop a strategy for education in the State. On engaging them, the first issue that became clear was the lack of coherence of the objectives for education within the State.

The segregation of this Ministry meant that it was difficult to put together one strategy that the various parastatals under it aligned with. They all seemed to be moving in different directions, implementing a lot of stuff and were busy being busy. On asking for their plans, all I received were long laundry lists of infrastructural equipment such as tables, chairs, computers and vehicles. While it is good to have up to date infrastructure at schools, it seemed like they had forgotten the need to invest in other intangible areas such teaching and training.

When I expressed my concerns over this to one of my mentors in the education sector (someone with over 30 years of experience in both public and private education), she told me that high quality teaching far exceeds the need for infrastructure which instructors and children may not even be competent enough to use, particularly in rural areas.

She even made a joke, saying that left to her, she could just teach children basic literacy under a tree, without tables, chairs or computers, and call it a day. To her, the detail that goes into teaching is critical.  It doesn’t have to be complicated, what was important to her was getting the basics right.

So what are the basics? We could say that the literacy and numeracy capacity of the teachers themselves could count as the basics, and it would be easy to assume that our teachers meet a certain minimum standard.

Studies that have been carried out in various states in the country have, however, revealed that the quality of teachers is actually a dire problem in Nigeria. One carried out by the Education Sector Support Programme in Nigeria (ESSPIN) brought forward concerns over the low numeracy and literacy skills in teachers in Kwara State.

What was more shocking was that there was little disparity between the teachers who had graduated from teacher training colleges and universities and those who hadn’t. So this raises the question, “What is going on at the teacher training colleges and other institutions?”

The role of teachers cannot be over-emphasised. It is actually critical to the delivery of quality education. If we don’t get this right, we should be very concerned about the quality of our citizens in the future, especially given the large and fast-growing active population in the country. This is why organisations such as Teach for Nigeria have been birthed and charged with the mission to educate the educators.

Relating this to parents’ point of view, when selecting schools for children, it is very important that we look out for the standards and quality of teaching at the schools. This might be difficult to do if the parents have not had any initial interaction with the school, but they could take their scope of their search a little further by observing other children at the school, looking out for any published academic records or even getting referrals from parents at the school they may know.

The focus should not be limited to the infrastructure, affordability of school fees or prestige of the school alone (even though some of these other factors are important).

Finally, taking this to the perspective of schools’ Management, it is imperative that they invest in their staff and teachers, ensuring that they are well equipped with the right skills and tools to improve the effectiveness of their teaching methods and delivery, through training, constructive feedback sessions and other capacity building initiatives.

Schools could also go beyond this and provide additional incentives that would improve the wellbeing of their staff and teachers, including good welfare packages, awards and other things that would make them feel better appreciated and more empowered.

Quality education is really reflective of quality delivery. All stakeholders in the education should not take this for granted in their decision-making processes.

Oyin Egbeyemi

Oyin Egbeyemi is an Executive Administrator at The Foreshore School, Ikoyi, Lagos.