By Justus Nwakanma
Sometime ago, I was listening to a radio programme where some first-class graduates were being interviewed. A lady who graduated with first class in English from one the private universities was asked her favourite author.
She said, Shakespeare. Then the presenter asked her to quote a favourite line or verse from any book or writing of Shakespeare. She became flummoxed, muttering inebriated syllables. “Em…em you know, we were never asked to memorise those things.”
Out there, there are so many first class and second class upper graduates roaming the streets, who cannot match their certificates with practical knowledge.
It is therefore worrisome when last Saturday, the Federal Government pegged the minimum qualification for teaching in government schools at 2nd class upper.
Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education, Sonny Echono disclosed this during the Professional Qualifying Examination (PQE), organised by the TRCN in Abuja.
Hear him : “You must have a first-class or 2:1 as a minimum and if you have qualification in other subjects that is not in education, we will arrange for a conversion programme to be administered by NTI, TRCN and any university that has faculties of education or this programme because you also have to learn ways of communicating and managing students.”
One is won’t to ask: What happens to the 6th National Policy on Education that stipulates NCE as the minimum qualification for teachers of basic education?
The objectives of that policy, include the inculcation of national consciousness and national unity; the inculcation of the right type of values and attitudes for the survival of the individual and the Nigerian society; the training of the mind in the understanding of the world around; and the acquisition of appropriate skills and the development of mental, physical and social abilities and competencies. These values can never be inculcated in children if paper qualification is placed as premium.
Yes, the qualification of the teacher is important to ensure professionalism and improve on the standard of education. But it would be building on a faulty foundation to make it the sole determinant.
Those who make the best results do no make the best teachers.
Any trained teacher, or one who has had long years of teaching experience would understand that teaching goes beyond mere qualifications. Psychologists understand that the learning process is affected by such factors as family and social environment, genetic inheritance and rate of development. These in turn, translate into intelligence, creativity, cognition, motivation and the ability to communicate and relate to others.
The apparent danger in this new policy if implemented, is that it will sustain a loose, strange culture of employee engagement, introduced by the banks and muliti-national companies in Nigeria. This culture is that only those with the best results- first class or second class upper degrees are often employed.
Undoubtedly, this has led to the mad rush by universities to award indiscriminate first class degrees.
A recent report by Daily Trust revealed that 36 Nigerian universities produced 2,288 graduates with first class honours degrees out of 127,023 graduates in 2019.
The report said: Private universities were far ahead in this relatively new-found penchant for granting first class degrees to graduating students that read different courses.”
The report revealed that during the 2018/2019 convocation of Covenant University, Ota, Ogun State, 215 out of its 1,580 graduands were graded first class, representing 13 per cent.
Afe Babalola University produced 99 first class out of the 979 students; Babcock University had 62 first class graduands out of the 1,926 students.
This trend to be seen as ‘competitive and producing only the best’ has also infested publicly funded universities. Now they “have also escalated the number of students getting the highest degree award.” The word ‘escalated’ as used by the Daily Trust is apt and deep. It shows a desperation to do what others are doing whether it is wrong or right .
“The University of Lagos produced 271 first class degree holders in its 2018/2019 session out of 6,992 students; University of Ibadan had 241 first class candidates out of 7,330, Usmanu Danfodiyo University Sokoto had 113 first class out of 10,994 students, while University of Port Harcourt recorded 106 first class degrees from 4,771 students it graduated this year,” the report noted.
This is a dangerous trend. Dr Ben Ugwoke of the Department of Chemistry, University of Abuja, in that report said: “I suspect that various universities are now in the habit of giving first class to many graduates just to increase their employability. I am not too sure it reflects their academic abilities.
“If you want to destroy a country, all you need to do is to lower the standard of education and that is what we are seeing now. If you give a first class to someone not deserving it, the public, the employer will view them as first class material.
He reasons that such students “will be placed in some serious positions to make decisions on behalf of the system and if truly they are not first class graduates, their decisions can never be first class; their decisions will be faulty and that will be calamitous for the entire country.”
Still on that report, Prof. Umaru Pate, Dean of Post Graduate Studies, Bayero University, Kano, said: “The trend is worrisome because there are allegations that some of the universities do so to attract candidates as they will be seen as serious institutions where people will come in and graduate with very good grades.
“This is particularly so in a situation where the job market is very stiff and highly competitive. So they (universities) could do that to encourage entries as well as promote the job marketability of their candidates.”
Prof. Pate further revealed that “the pressure of wanting to meet up with conditions stipulated by the PTDF to access their scholarship grants could be partly responsible for the desire for students and school managements to award first class degrees.”
This new guidelines and conditions released by the ministry instead of helping to improve the quality of education will lower it. We are going to witness an increase in the award of first class and second class upper degrees particularly in education-related courses.
Instead of raising the minimum qualification for teachers, why not engage them in training and retraining. I know a teacher who recently retired.
In the 30 years she served she never attended any retraining. She only attended interviewes for promotion. How can you get the best of teachers if they are not put through the dynamics of this technology age?
Rather than increase the minimum qualification for teachers they should be put through frequent training and retraining programmes while existing curricular should be redesignined to meet modern trends.