A teacher in a public secondary school in Oyo State once described his experience teaching Biology to the whole school, which had a population of at least 500 students.
An analyst in the education sector in Ibadan says this is due to the uneven distribution of teachers and the mass retirement of teachers without replacement.
According to him, some teachers are frustrated and overwhelmed by a load of work, which affects the quality of education.
To address this, the Oyo State government recently recruited 5,000 teachers to fill the void left by retired teachers. However, analysts point out that the number of recruits pales compared to the number of teachers who have left the state education sector.
Oyo State Universal Basic Education Board
Also, the number of recruits is small, considering the Universal Basic Education Board (UBEC)’s 2022 National Personnel Audit (NPA) recommendation that the Oyo State government should recruit more teachers into public primary schools.
“The need to recruit more teachers became manifest during the just-concluded Personnel Audit Exercise in the state by the commission in collaboration with the Oyo State Universal Basic Education Board,’’ the Executive Secretary of the Universal Basic Education Commission, Dr Hamid Bobboyi, insists.
He notes that the present shortage of qualified teachers threatens the quality of education the Gov. Seyi-Makinde-led administration offers pupils.
A teacher in the state, pleading anonymity, says there has been mass retirement of teachers in the last four years without recruitment to fill the gap left.
“Some of us were asked to start teaching subjects that we have no background in besides our subject, and this is not really working well as we already have a lot of work in our own field.
“Because of bad roads, some teachers who have built houses in the suburbs got transferred to their communities, leaving another vacuum.
“So, in a school, you might have seven English teachers, whereas, in another school, there might be no teacher or just one teacher taking the subject,’’ the teacher observes.
But Prof. Clement Kolawole, the Chairman of the School Governing Board at Estate High School Senior, Bashorun, commended the Oyo State government for massively taking the bull by the horns and recruiting teachers into the system.
“In the last few months, the government has recruited 5,000 teachers.
I commend the government for that because that is how we can strengthen the education sector.
“If there are issues with the posting of teachers, the government cannot be held responsible because there are people who are saddled with the responsibility of posting teachers; they should give an account of how they post teachers.
“If there are vacancies in the system, the government’s attention should be drawn to that; but so far, the education in Oyo State has been wonderful because the government has been doing very well,’’ he notes.
Mr Ayodeji Solanke, the Coordinator of CVG-AFRICA, a non-governmental organisation that trains and retrains teachers for better education, observes that the government should take a holistic look at the education standards being set in the state.
“Teachers’ distribution should be based on the size of the school, which is the students’ population.
There should be more teachers where there are more students, especially in the core subjects.
“Also, we know that teachers lobby to be close to their area of residence or community, they push for this even when there is no space for them or when they are not needed where they are going because they just want to be there.
“So, when they get there, they may become the number six mathematics teacher, so they have nothing to do there.
“The fact is that such teachers had used lobbying to get their desire in getting schools closer to where they live,’’ he said.
According to him, there is another situation whereby a long-serving teacher is just moved to other schools even when his or her movement will cause a vacuum in the school from which he or she is being moved.
He stated that having served a long time in a place should not be a reason to move any teacher.
But if that is to be done, there should be a replacement.
“I have heard about such a transfer of a teacher before.
“Another thing to look at is putting the right teacher to handle the subject he or she has knowledge and experience in handling.
This will ensure there is no deficit.
English and Mathematics
“We see more teachers studying English and Mathematics, but some subjects are not really studied in the colleges of education or tertiary institutions.
“So, what happens later is that teachers now improvised to teach those endangered subjects or rare subjects.
“The way forward is for the government to be sincere and conduct a thorough and continuous review of teachers’ distributions and deficits in handling some rare subjects.
“There should be a quarterly or yearly assessment of the numbers of teachers on ground, finding out if schools have the required numbers of teachers relative to students’ population and subjects that would be taught,’’ he said.
“Favoritism should be jettisoned.
Teachers should be posted according to the area of need in schools.
“Government should work on incentives for teachers, especially in rural communities.
“This is because most teachers posted to rural communities see it as a death sentence.
So, they either don’t report to school or find a way to get a retransfer back to the city.
“Incentives such as staff quarters should be returned, though some old schools still have this. Are they in good living conditions?
“The alumni of various schools should find ways to partner with the government on this to ensure that teachers posted to far places or rural areas have accommodation that would enable them to discharge their duties and not abscond or abandon them.
“The government can also bring back car loans as an incentive for teachers.
This is practicable despite the cost of vehicles now; all it would take is the willingness to do it.
“I believe more incentives would be helpful to ensure quality education in Nigeria as a whole,’’ he said.
