BusinessDay
Olanrewaju Oniyitan
October 4, 2024
Olanrewaju Oniyitan is the Executive Director of SEED Care & Support Foundation, a non-profit that supports the affordable non-state education sector to deliver access to quality education for all children by providing advocacy, evidence, and a learning network. She is also the CEO of W-Holistic Business Solutions, a development advisory firm.
On the dawn of Nigeria’s 64th Independence Day, the nation, with its rich tapestry of history, culture, and diversity, stands at a significant crossroads. Over 200 million people echo their dreams, aspirations, and challenges.
The challenges are manifold, but those facing the education sector are alarming. 20 million-plus children out-of-school; 70 percent of those who are in school but not learning (learning poverty); absence of enough schools for the children of school age; many schools grappling with infrastructural inadequacies; absence of basic amenities; teacher shortages (quantity and quality); and much more… deterring consistent attendance and effective learning. Economic constraints, coupled with a lack of interest in studies (a.k.a. “education is a SCAM”) have led to high dropout rates.
However, these very challenges offer opportunities for growth. In the midst of the myriad of growth opportunities in the education sector, a critical one to highlight as we celebrate “World Teachers Day” on October 5th is the role of educators.
The role of educators in the transformation of education and to advance SDG 4 (Sustainable Development Goal) cannot be understated. Teachers are the backbone of any educational system. Unfortunately, UNESCO and the International Teacher Task Force’s recently published Global Report on Teachers (2024) rang the alarm on a global shortage of teachers and massive growth in teacher attrition rates. 44 million additional teachers need to be recruited globally to meet universal primary and secondary education in 2030, of which 15 million are needed in Sub-Saharan Africa alone.
Nigeria’s classrooms are seeing an increase in the number of students, a trend set to continue for 2–3 decades as our population is projected to keep rising. The severe shortage of teachers is worsening as student numbers grow; the pipeline of qualified teachers is not growing at the same pace, and many qualified teachers are migrating to other countries in search of better opportunities.
Our reality is that less than 10 percent of graduates of education degrees truly want to be teachers, and on the flipside, only about 2.4 million teachers (about 60%) out of the around 4 million teachers in-service are qualified to teach, according to the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN). The TRCN further highlighted that in southwest Nigeria, for instance, as much as 70 percent of private school teachers are unqualified. However, you cannot teach in Nigeria without being certified and licensed by TRCN. This is the law.
From “a state of emergency” teacher shortage challenge needing innovative action, this is a conversation I’ve had severally: Will you go to the hospital and allow a doctor that is not qualified to treat you? As a middle-class Nigerian, most likely I wouldn’t. But people like me are in the minority when it comes to the overall population of Nigeria.
I am not one of the millions of Nigerians who will have zero access to healthcare if not for the tireless efforts of nurses and community health workers (CHWs) in primary and community health centres where there are no doctors. Medical emergencies will not wait till the government provides qualified doctors.
Similarly, the majority of the 70 percent of unqualified private school teachers in southwest Nigeria referenced by TRCN are in low-fee private schools, serving children from low-income families who may not have access to education if these schools did not exist in their communities. Children are only children once. Education cannot wait.
The successful realisation of SDG 4 in Nigeria’s context necessitates collective action, commitment, and collaboration toward rethinking teacher education. We need to find an innovative way to fast-track the certification of teaching professionals who are truly committed to the profession as we continuously feed the pipeline.
Perhaps we take a cue from countries like the UK, US, Australia, the Netherlands, Germany, India, and Canada that embraced a new and innovative profession in healthcare, the Physician Associate (PA). In the mid-1960s, physicians and educators were alarmed at a growing shortage of trained primary care physicians.
At the Duke University Medical Centre, Dr Eugene Stead created a new program of study that would fast-track the training of medical professionals. He based it on a military program that was designed to produce qualified field medics quickly. The new role quickly gained recognition across the US as a remedy for the physician shortage, with the federal government and national medical community coming together to create accreditation standards for the position, which has had a valued role in healthcare since.
These questions then arise as teacher shortages continue to worsen:
How do we make teaching aspirational, a desired profession?
How do we develop innovative models for teacher education so we can continue feeding the pipeline with quality teaching professionals?
Take an example of Ms. Odunayo Oluchi Adams, an alumni of the SEED Teachers-in-Training Fellowship. Her path from a secondary school graduate searching for purpose to teaching young children at Tempo Schools, then becoming a student at Adeniran Ogunsanya College of Education, and now back to Tempo Schools as a professional and certified early childhood educator, embodies the transformative power of dedication, vision, and love for education.
Did Ms. Adams’ experience as a secondary school graduate teaching in a classroom actually help her pick teaching as a preferred profession? Can this be an example to be given some thought towards rethinking models of teacher education in Nigeria alongside existing models? Can a new innovative profession in education evolve to address the teacher shortages? These are some questions that keep me up at night.
The path forward is clear—let the clarion call be for an educational renaissance, where every child not only goes to school but also receives an education that empowers, enlightens, and elevates… and an increased supply of committed teachers is central in making this happen.
As the nation works towards “renewed hope,” we understand the journey ahead is long, but with collective will and action, Nigeria can script a narrative of educational excellence worthy of its rich legacy and promising future.
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Business Day, established in 2001, is a daily business newspaper based in Lagos. It is the only Nigerian newspaper with a bureau in Accra, Ghana. It has both daily and Sunday titles. It circulates in Nigeria and Ghana
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