Develop yourself or get sacked, FG tells teachers

 The Federal Government on Friday said it is currently working on a new regulation that will enable teachers to update their skills in relevant areas of teaching every two years.

The Minister of State for Education, Prof. Anthony Onwukah, disclosed this in Abuja while speaking during the annual conference of the Nigerian Academy of Education.
He said the ministry is working on a situation where a two-year moratorium would be given for all teachers to update their skills in relevant areas, adding that any teacher that fails to obey the directive after the expiration of the period would be sacked.

The conference, which was attended by top officials from all the Colleges of Education in Nigeria, had the theme: “Teacher education in Nigeria, challenges and reforms.”

The minister who said the new move is part of the reforms being carried out by the current administration in the education sector noted that henceforth, teaching would be treated as a profession rather than a place for people who could not secure employment in lucrative places.

He said, “We want to ensure that no untrained teacher in whatever circumstance or place would be allowed into any Nigerian classroom whether primary, secondary or tertiary.

“I want to reveal that we are assiduously working towards trying to obtain permission for a two-year moratorium during which period that if you are a teacher and you fail to update yourself with the relevant skills effectively, you would have to find something else to do.

“I have already started receiving punches on this but we are going to pursue this and must make teaching a profession.”

The minister also decried the inclusion of education in the concurrent list in the 1999 constitution stating that the move is having a negative impact on the sector.

He said if the education sector must play its role effectively in the development of the economy, it was imperative for it to be removed from the concurrent list.

He said currently, it’s inclusion in the concurrent list is causing dichotomy between the federal and the state governments thus creating problems for the sector.

He said, “The issue of education being in the concurrent list has been a problem for years and has remained unsolved.

“If education must move forward and if we must do the needful in that sector, then the dichotomy between the roles of states and the Federal Government must be broken.

“For as long as education remains on the concurrent list, it will continue to be in the doldrums.”

The minister challenged the academy to rise to the expectations of Nigerians by proffering practical solutions to the challenges of the sector adding that the era of complaints was over.

Earlier, the Executive Secretary, National Commission for Colleges of Education, Prof. Monday Joshua, said the sector was facing lots of problems that needed to be addressed to improve the quality of teaching.

Joshua, who was the guest lecturer at the event, listed some of the challenges as inconsistent policies, funding, and disparity in terms of service among tertiary institutions.

Others are low regard for teachers by members of the society, low quality of students’ intake into colleges of education, low private sector contribution to education, and dilapidated infrastructure.