Return teachers’ autonomy to boost education enrolment, FG urged

An education specialist and teacher, Dr Smith Bam has asked the federal government to return autonomy to teachers like doctors in order to boost enrolment of more people in tertiary institutions.

This is even as he said the yardstick for being a teacher in Nigeria should be increased and make sure that the parameters are high.

Speaking at a workshop organised by Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN) for Education Correspondence Association Nigeria in Abuja on  Friday on the topic, “A Practical Approach to Teacher Education: Challenges of Law Student Enrolment in Tertiary Institutions in Nigeria,” Dr Bam said teachers have been taken for granted for too long because their autonomy is taken away from them.

The educationist said until teachers get their compensation elevated like that of doctors, enrolment will remain low.

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“It is okay if the government gives us the curriculum but allows us to micromanage it. You do not certify a doctor and tell him how to do his work, but teachers are asked to do things in a certain way and follow a curriculum that is archaic and irrelevant to today’s realities.”

In his presentation, the Public Communications Advisor of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) Dr. Fabian Benjamin said the cut off marks in admission into tertiary institutions, especially into colleges of education is low because of the issue of demands.

He said if the mark is pegged high, there is a possibility of many institutions closing down because they will not have students to admit.

Dr Benjamin said: “There is a need to realistically review the minimum entry requirement into the NCE programme to arrest high levels of forgery and falsification of results and that the government should look into creating more incentives for teachers in the form of robust salary structures and other welfare packages.”

For Registrar of TRCN, Prof Josiah Ajiboye, who was represented by a Director in the council, Abimbola Okunola said the theme is apt, strategic and critical to contemporary educational demands and sums up what should form the focus of the present drive to raise education quality, standards and best practices in the country.

He said: “There is no doubt that teacher education needs a practical approach to achieve its goal in the society and the issue of enrolment in higher institutions most especially in the faculty of education calls for concern.”