The National Teachers Institute (NTI) recently identified what could be regarded as the major problem responsible for the falling standards of education in the country. According to the NTI, about 54% of teachers in the country are under qualified to be engaged for the important job of imparting knowledge on our young ones. The institute blamed this ugly trend on the inability of some local governments in the country to adhere to its standing rule that only holders of National Certificate in Education (NCE) should be employed to teach at the primary school level.

This pathetic situation was disclosed by the NTI director in charge of Academic Services, Dr. Abdulrahman Umar, while speaking with a team of foreign educationists from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation of the United States of America (USA), who were at the institute on a special visit. Dr. Umar singled out the northern part of the country as most guilty in violating the rule regarding NCE certificate as the minimum qualification to teach in primary school. According to him, “although it is not every state that is facing the problem of unqualified teachers, it is more common in the north. We don’t want to start pointing fingers or categorically mention the states because the idea is not to disregard any state but I assure you that the NTI is doing its best to tackle such issues”.

The NTI academic services director said the federal government was addressing the situation by organizing a special 3-year upgrading programme in the institute to uplift the percentage of qualified teachers in the affected states. Dr. Umar, however, stressed that the federal government’s efforts to tackle the problem can only succeed if the affected states were also committed by sending their unqualified teachers to undergo the special 3-year upgrading programme run by the NTI.

Though the NTI director failed to mention the specific states in the north, which engage unqualified teachers, his revelation came at the time the Plateau state Education Reform Committee made yet another startling revelation that out of the 11,000 primary school teachers in the state, only 4,000 are qualified leaving 7,000 unqualified to teach, who thus were not supposed to have been engaged in the first place. The education reform committee, which is headed by an educationist, Professor Dakum Shown, called for urgent steps to be taken to redress the situation. And in Niger State, out of its 22,000 teachers, 7,000 of them are unqualified.

There is a little doubt that the situation is far worse in some other northern states, which is why we at Nigerian Newsday strongly feel that the NTI director should have named the guilty states that engage the services of unqualified persons to teach in primary school. By failing to mention the affected Northern states, the NTI director has not in anyway helped such states because governors of such states might not be aware that some local governments in their states deliberately engage the services of unqualified teachers. We are, however, aware that some of the states like Niger, Sokoto, Kebbi, Jigawa, Kano and Borno are aware of the problem and are making genuine efforts to tackle the problem.

In Niger State, for instance, the governor, Alhaji Babangida Aliyu has directed all unqualified teachers to enroll in the NTI for the qualifying certificate and until they obtain the NCE certificate, such teachers have been redesigned as Assistant teachers. This is a commendable step which the governors of all the affected states should emulate.

But we in Nigerian Newsday strongly believe that the root of the problem of unqualified teachers in our primary school is political patronage. It has been established that politicians and some highly placed persons in the society often direct education authorities at the local government level to employ their relations, who in most cases are not qualified to teach in public primary schools. This is unfortunate. Our leaders whose children, in any way, do not attend such public schools should stop influencing the employment of unqualified persons as teachers. The point is that the primary school level is the foundation of education for the children and once this foundation is not strong the entire education system and invariably every sector of the economy will be weak as well. This will inevitably create a vicious circle.

In other words, graduates from primary to the tertiary level, will be properly qualified and so at the end of the day they will not perform well at what ever level or sector of the economy they are employed to work. This in the long run, will have adverse effect on the entire economy. Therefore, everything possible must be done to avert this looming danger.

It is in this regard that we at Nigerian Newsday strongly implore our politicians and other elite to stop the unhealthy habit of imposing their unqualified relations as teachers in our public schools. We would also like to urge the affected states with unqualified teachers to partner with the NTI and Federal Government to redress the situation by sending the unqualified teachers for the three years NTI upgrading programme. They should also ensure that henceforth no unqualified persons are recruited to teach at the primary school level.