The teacher who cannot read

BY way of introduction, let me confess that I am not the source of the title of this piece. It is borrowed and it must be acknowledged. The author is John Corcoran whose book goes by that title. I thank God for my fellow teachers in Nigeria who cannot only read but can also teach skills. Most of them are certificated, resilient and I commend them for doing exploits in the face of austere and frustrating teaching and learning environment. They will perform better if the environment is improved upon. Having said that, the title of Corcoran’s book sounds strange and uncomplimentary. However, many of my readers must have come across stories of some primary school teachers who could not read well and many pupils whose reading skills left much to be desired. Research findings have also actually established the problems of pupils who cannot read. These pupils have spent about six years in the primary school and have ended up as illiterates! The United Nations Children’s Education Fund (UNICEF) recently lamented that Nigeria is experiencing a learning crisis in which more than 70 per cent of 10-year-old children cannot read and write or perform basic numeracy tasks. It added that learning is not happening in many schools. Similarly, the World Bank corroborated this sad commentary by stating that 70 per cent of 10-year-olds cannot understand simple sentences or perform basic numeracy tasks. These examples only confirm or repeat what many Nigerians know.

To further buttress the background above, many of our political leaders, including Muhammadu Buhari, have sung it severally that education is the bedrock of development. In addition, the governor of Edo State, Godwin Obaseki, recently said “Once you get basic education right, everything else falls in place.” A foremost legal luminary and promoter of quality education in Nigeria, Chief Afe Babalola, put this in a more vivid way many years ago. According to him, “One of the problems is the quality of products turned out to the universities by the primary and secondary schools… When I recall that what I learnt in elementary school was what I built on in my preparation for Cambridge School Certificate privately, I cannot but sympathise with the products of our elementary schools. This is to show that the rot in the education sector had its roots in the elementary schools, so the reformation of our education should start from the primary school.” I agree with him.

The thematic focus of this article is the apparent lack of effective methods of teaching reading skills in our primary schools, especially the public ones. We will agree that the greatest gift to a pupil and simple evidence of school attendance is the ability to read. It is the key to learning and personal enjoyment. Ideally, teaching reading skills should be the most important in the first two years of school (P. 1 and 2). Unfortunately, confusing methods are largely used as foundation and after attending school for six years, many children remain illiterate. They get to secondary school without any practical test of their oral reading and the teachers inherit them as liabilities. However, such children manage to copy notes, enjoy promotion and finally leave school with poor grades. Many who benefit from cheating and get some good grades cannot go further, except where cheating is allowed or no examination is administered. Some have results they cannot use or defend. Many disappear, to reappear as touts, pickpockets and the like.

At this juncture, we need to ask: How did we get here and what is the way out? In the past, there were training colleges for would-be teachers and children were more mature for elementary school. Today, training colleges are moribund and training is weak! Many teachers depend only on teaching pupils to cram letter names (a b c d e f… or a for apple, e for egg) and many words with pictures. Yes, the very intelligent ones can cram well, sing the letters, write them and read the crammed words. This is called “The whole word method”. Unfortunately, the pupil becomes helpless as soon as his capacity to memorise is overloaded. No wonder, a pupil from a private school who was being tested for transfer to another private school recently could read/pot/but could not read /top/. Meanwhile, the two words have the same three sounds! Was it the pupil’s fault? No. That pupil had actually not been taught the skills to read a new word. The sounds of the letters must be taught, not just the letter names. And this brings us to the issue of retraining of teachers. If we do not train them, we cannot blame them.

In conclusion, it is the system that fails to review its curriculum and training strategies. I was only lucky to cut my professional teeth under an Irish lady (Madam Sheila Solarin, MBE, MFR). That was how I was exposed to effective practical strategies that work. Thereafter, since I did not want to be selfish, I sent training proposals to Ministries of Education in Lagos, Oyo and Osun States. In addition, I met some Commissioners but only one read, acknowledged and appreciated the contents. I am still waiting to hear a positive response from them, after many years. Truth be told, if the UBE will achieve its objectives, the government should consider retraining teachers to teach reading skills for quick results. This is the foundation needed to make our pupils happy, love school, raise the standard, attack illiteracy, boost democracy and gradually reduce security challenges.