Our students are our marketers —AOCOED provost

Dr. Omolola Ladele is the first female provost of the Adeniran Ogunsanya College of Education (AOCOED), Ijanikin, Lagos State. In this interview with NAZA OKOLI shortly after the college’s 2016/17 matriculation ceremony, she spoke of the strategies that have ensured a steady growth in the population of NCE students in the college.

You have just admitted over 1000 students into your fulltime programmes. Doesn’t this disprove the common belief that colleges of education are becoming less attractive to secondary school leavers?

Well, generally, many people don’t like taking education as their first choice. But you have some who actually see education as a calling; and they have a passion for teaching. And over the years, we source our students ourselves, in addition to those provided for us by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), and also from our school of preliminary studies. And also, the students we have on this campus do some marketing for us, because many at times come in disenchanted, probably because they were not offered admission by the universities of their choice. But during the process of orientation and counselling, we make them see the values that come from being in a vantage position to influence and model lives right from their childhood. Many key into that, and with the quality of instruction gotten from here, as well as the fact that we also reach out and take them as our children, they get to like the subjects that they do, and the career itself, and many of them stay in the teaching profession.

So, what specific factors have contributed to the number of students admitted today?

Today’s turnout has actually been a combination of marketing by our students and also the fact that the college also reached out through various means to let them know that we are here, and that we offer quality education. You also remember that JAMB later reduced the cut-off mark for colleges of education a bit. But that does not mean that we still did not put in place the quality guidelines which we have always been having. I have to emphasise that we strictly still go by them. For example, every student seeking admission must have his papers complete.

The actual figure is 1, 125. Is this an improvement on the number admitted last year?

Yes, there is a slight improvement; but it’s about the same range.

In spite of the efforts made by the colleges of education to improve the standard of education in the country, many are still unsatisfied with the quality of teachers we have in the country today. What would be responsible for this?

It starts from the basic level of education. When the foundation is not strong, it is a bit difficult to build upon it. The students we admit in the colleges of education come from secondary schools; and those who go into the secondary schools finished from the basic level of education. So, it is a build-up where when the basic level of education is well taken care of, properly funded, with the pupils adequately motivated and taught by well-qualified teachers, then by the time they move on into the secondary school, they build upon that one. The society has moved away from just telling; you don’t just tell, anymore, in the teaching profession. Instead, you help the students to construct their knowledge as much as possible. That way, they don’t just see it as knowledge in the air. Within them, they are able to build on the prior knowledge that they had had; and through that, they take what they are given, and they are now able to apply it. And if the secondary education is well positioned, and the students are properly grounded in the knowledge, then they move on to any of the tertiary institutions, and everything just become a build-up.

But we know that students come in with results that already certify that they are competent in the relevant subjects.

If we have a situation where they come in with the result, then there is an extent to which you can assess that result. So, we take the result that they bring and we believe that that result is authentic enough. If a student has a B2 or B3 in Mathematics for example, we expect that the output of that student in the classroom should correspond with that B2 or B3. So, when the students get here, they start off with that; but along the way, at times, it is possible we see that the output is not actually what you see in the certificate. And so, that discrepancy comes into play, and we now have to do what is done in any of the classes at the 100 level: you go back to what they were supposed to have learnt in their secondary schools. Sometimes, it takes some time, but we try our best possible within the space of time that we have. That is still why I maintain that the basic level is very key.

Clearly, a part of the problem is examination malpractice. That is possibly why certificates do not often reflect the true abilities of the student. How do you address this issue at the college, bearing in mind that here is where teachers are trained? And how would you advise the government to tackle it?

One is education – educating the students, right from the primary level. From that level, when you teach them about citizenship and values, you start inculcating it there. Again, we talk about government a lot. But each one of us is a part of the government. In your own home, there is government there. In the church, there is government, too. So, it is not only the federal or the state or the local government that should be held responsible. Every one of us is stakeholder – from the home, the larger community, the extended family, the church, the mosque, and the society at large. This is the way we can reduce it, if not completely eradicate it. We have to get our values correctly, and our priorities right.