The Federal government stated that it intends to attract the best brains to the education sector.
As part of efforts toward achieving this, Adamu Adamu, the Minister of Education, was quoted as saying the country will pay a 75,000 naira/semester stipend for students undergoing education-related courses in Nigerian Public Universities while Nigerian Certificate in Education students will get N50,000 stipend.
The government noted that respective state governments will be partnered to identify courses of study required by each state. The funds will be sourced from UBEC, TETFUND and managed by the federal scholarship board.
Will The Stipends Be Enough to Attract “Best Brains”?
Amongst many other challenges such as infrastructure, policy, access etc. one of the most predominant challenges of the education sector is the poor welfare of teachers. Teachers without blemish, an NGO had said, an inability to improve teachers’ welfare and expose them to better skills mitigates against improving education in Nigeria.
Already, existing Nigerian teachers complain of low welfare and there continues to be disagreement on payment of minimum wage in some states. Some states such as Ekiti, Ogun, Gombe among others were quoted as saying there is nothing that can be done to pay a new teachers’ salary scale planned by the federal government for 2022, if there was no money for states to do so.
In October, the National Union of Teachers at this year’s World Teachers Day threatened to go on strike over the non-implementation of the national minimum wage.
Even in retirement, teachers are not spared as they’re victims of non-payment of pensions and often die without ever receiving their pension and/or gratuity.
Mr Ishola is a retired teacher in one of the state-owned schools in Osun state, who worked for over thirty years before his eventual retirement. Four years after his retirement, he is yet to be paid his pension, which has caused him hardship and led him to join the movement to ensure that the state government paid pensioners their due.
Some of his friends who had waited for years without being paid their pension died without ever receiving their due. He told Dataphyte that the treatment of pensioners by the government would not encourage people to go into the teaching profession but despite his experience and pain, he would not be part of the failure of the system. As such, he would not hesitate to encourage the younger generation to teach, even though he knows younger persons will not take what they(retired teachers) tolerated in the act of service.
Pa Amiola, was 64 years old when he died. He lost his life without ever seeing the salary he was owed nor his pension. Before his death, the retired headmaster was forced to beg for his survival having lost his sight to chronic glaucoma and eventually his mobility due to an undiagnosed disease that caused his testicles to swell. He started teaching in 1981 and rose through the ranks from a primary school teacher and retired as a headmaster, he died in 2020 crippled and bed-ridden.
These stories are a drop in the ocean of several such similar horror stories that is the experience of Nigerian teachers when they retire.
Education Students are Uninspired Despite Promise of Payouts
Dataphyte spoke to some education students about the intention of the government to ensure that education students receive a monthly stipend with the hook that whoever receives the money signs a bond to serve the state for five years.
Ajayi Oluwagbemiga, a 400-level education student, in one of Nigeria’s leading universities told Dataphyte that the current teaching sector holds no appeal. “It appears like we are spending years here just to go out and be treated abysmally. From what we are hearing from our senior colleagues who are out there in the teaching profession, some of us just want to finish our education degree and find something else doing” he noted.
On what he would do with the N75,000, he stated that what the sector needs is funding but if given the N75,000, he will not reject it. “What the sector needs is better funding, improvement of welfare, facilities among others. However, I would not reject the money to be given, even though if possible, we would find a way to say it is not what we want. Teachers are called nation builders but how would we be nation builders when we earn peanuts” Ajayi said.
He described the money as a ‘father christmas gift’ from the government, while noting that in the event that there is compulsion to work for five years with a state after receiving the stipend, it may amount to forcing people to do what they do not have interest in or want to do.
A 300-level education student in one of Nigeria’s federal Universities, Bashira, expressed skepticism on willingness to serve her state for five years but noted that she will rather wait till the time.
The President of the Education Students Association in Obafemi Awolowo University, Awe Femi told Dataphyte that while the stipend will improve the welfare of students in the education system, the salary of teachers remains poor.
“The stipend is a way to reignite hope that the education sector is still important and at such a good move. It will also improve students’ welfare. However, the salary of teachers remains very poor. The funding of the education sector is also worrisome and requires attention to meet the UNESCO requirements.” he opined.
Besides the Question of Attractiveness, Are Nigeria’s Education Graduates Equipped to Transform the Sector?
The president of ASUU declared that tertiary institutions are grossly unprepared to take learning online as they believe it will water down the quality of learning and also because lecturers do not have the skills to deliver online lectures. Tertiary education at present is devoid of any tools to prepare graduates for the 21st Century market they will operate in.
Ibe, A retired professor expressed concerns about the volume of first-class graduates being churned out of tertiary institutions and his worry is hinged on the poor quality of academic staff within the system.
Clearly, the problems that face the education sector impact the quality of education that is accessed. The multi-layered problems facing the sector makes it unable to keep up with advancement in education especially with transformative tech-enabled learning. The Covid19 lockdowns exposed the gross deficiency in the system of education as most schools came to a grinding halt, unable to deliver learning to their pupils.
Gbenga Rufai, a public policy analyst sharing his thoughts on the incentive plan by the federal government and its potential impact on the education sector said incentivizing students or anyone for that matter by itself is not wrong he however said incentivizing an unskilled person is a waste. He said further that “if the aim is to improve the education sector then it is important to pay attention to the process that will produce these future teachers. The quality of training that these students receive is primary and this is directly proportional to the quality of their teachers.” He further advised that the federal government may want to run a pilot of these incentive schemes with tertiary institutions that have evidence of producing quality educators and subject this pilot to rigorous monitoring and evaluation to ascertain the impact of the intervention before considering scaling to all education students across all tertiary institutions.
There is a serious consideration to be given to the impact that graduates of the present education system will have on the sector and if any gains will be made in improving education beyond increasing the number of teachers.
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