Don’t kill teacher education with your policies, COEASU warns federal, state govts

The Colleges of Education Academic Staff Union (COEASU) has expressed worry over educational policies of the federal and state governments that are affecting teacher’s education, calling for caution to prevent total extinction of the subsector in the country.

The National President of the union, Dr Smart Olugbeko, expressed this concern in an exclusive interview with Nigerian Tribune on Tuesday when asked for his comment on the recent adoption of the Ogun State-owned Tai Solarin University of Education (TASUED) Ijagun, Ijebu Ode, by the Federal Government and the conversion of some state-owned colleges of education to full-fledged degree awarding institutions.

He said this kind of actions by both federal and state governments was de-marketing colleges of education at the expense of universities, wondering why the government is running away from facing the reality in solving teacher’s education in the country.

According to him, this action by the government showes it was aware of the challenges in teacher’s education in the country but failed to tackle the underline factors causing them rather than playing to the gallery.

He explained that the conversion of colleges of education to universities without changing the national policy on education on the minimum qualifications for teaching at various levels of education is deceptive and won’t work.

According to him, the minimum qualification for teaching in Nigeria’s schools is still the National Certificate in Education, (NCE) as the policy is clear about the level of education where NCE holders are expected to teach, which is at the basic level, ranging from crèche to nursery and junior secondary school.

The COEASU boss pointed out that, “That is what they are trained for; to effectively handle pupils at this level but if you are now asking degree holders to teach at the basic level, it may be difficult to get the desired results.

“Converting colleges of education to full-fledged universities is not the solution to teacher’s education in Nigeria and it is not also about emphasisng the NCE, rather it is about the general apathy to teacher’s education in the country.

“More so, this is the reason why those universities of education are unable to attract enough students to study education courses and that makes them to also add non-education courses so as to attract more students to their schools.

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He noted also that “when you look at the Joint Admissions Marticulation Board (JAMB) statistics, too, regarding number of candidates, who apply for education courses, you will find out that they are always the lowest. The simple reason for this is that many people don’t want to become teachers due to poor treatment of teachers in the country.”

He said governments at all levels will need to address the problem of teacher’s education by making the teaching profession attractive and to stop placing degree in education over the NCE,” Olugbeko emphasised.