One of the major features of the National Personnel Audit, NPA launched by the Nigerian Universal Basic Education Commission in 2019, was a significant deficit in the number of qualified teachers at the basic level of education, both in public and private schools.
The NPA indicated that no fewer than 277, 537 qualified teachers are required to fill existing gaps at the basic level of education in Nigeria.
The audit particularly revealed that while 73 percent of teachers in public basic schools are qualified, only 53 percent of the teachers in the private schools are eligible to teach at the basic level.
The United Nations Children’s Fund UNICEF, also recently disclosed that Nigeria faces a staggering learning crisis with learning outcomes being one of the lowest globally.
The UN Agency further disclosed that 70 per cent of children in schools in Nigeria cannot read and write or perform basic numeracy tasks by age 10, as deduced from the National Learning Assessment 2017.
UNICEF attributed this to Shortage of qualified basic teachers , which no doubt, reveals the depth of poor academic performance among pupils at the primary school level.
This is because most unqualified teachers lack the competence to deliver quality teaching to the pupils due to the fact that such teachers have not been trained in deploying 21st-century skills in teaching hence presenting their classes to be teacher-centered and depriving the pupils opportunity to be engaged in the learning process.
These have revealed the importance of qualified teachers to achieving learning at the foundational level of education . it has also made known that the act of transferring knowledge to pupils and the act of receiving knowledge from a teacher is critical to achieving key element of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development , which specifically aims at the Goal 4 of the Sustainable Development Goals.
These identifies Education as a major driver for the achievement of other 17SDGs in Nigeria and the world over.
In promoting teachers’ professionalism , the Nigerian government through the Teachers’ Registration Council of Nigeria TRCN, has been conducting mandatory continued development in digital and online teaching training programmes for teachers in two out of the three geopolitical zones as mapped out for the year 2021.
With a clearer direction on the training programmes for teachers in Nigeria, the Registrar of the Council, Professor Josiah Ajiboye said TRCN now targets the training of 45000 teachers across 24 states under the Global Partnership Education GPE, Digital Literacy Training as well as Remote Learning Strategies For Teachers.
The Council designed the training to bridge the gap created by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic that affected the Nigerian education system . it also believes it would build resilience in learners against future shock.
Beyond this, UNICEF Education Expert , Manar Ahmed during her presentation on Foundational Literacy and Numeracy in Nigeria stated that 70percent new dimension of crisis in the basic education sector in which children below 10years in school are not adequately learning ,requires a change in approach of training and retraining of teachers at the basic level.
She disclosed that regional disparities at the basic education level revealed that 33percent of unqualified teachers are in the North-east of Nigeria , while 39percent of them are in the North-west of the country.
Mrs Manar also said training of teachers must go beyond theories to on the job training which creates opportunity for the teachers to get feedback and action plan on how to improve on the teaching skills. She emphasized that different teaching development professional modalities would always result in better learning outcomes.
“this idea on teacher professional development is more crucial than teacher training ,it involves creating enabling environment ,supportive tools ,community of practice that will support the teachers ,peer support and supervising assessment of teachers performance”
According to her, teaching at the basic education level must be tailored in away that it would involve teaching and learning practices.
“You do not only just train the teachers but ensuring that the teachers on return to their schools after theoretic trainings have enabling environment beginning with Head teachers , school support services to provide quality coaching and mentoring as well as supportive supervision”
“Circle support is most important whereby the teachers feel they are supported from the Head teacher who should provide supervisory feedbacks as well as school support services, as the teachers help the children to learn this will have positive impact on learning outcomes at the basic level”
The UNICEF Expert advocates for deliberate investment in Structural Teacher Continuous Professional development programmes adding that community engagement is also key to learning outcomes.
Sharing the UNICEF experiences on Reading and Numeracy Activity, Manar stated that digital and blending approach has worked for the agency in mitigating the negative impacts of COVID 19 on the basic education sub-sector.
Manar added that this involves the use of intranet, internet connectivites to the classroom, “digital does not only mean internet connection to all classrooms but also the engagement of Radio, T.V,edutainment and edu-programmings including the use of digital materials that can work online/offline”
