Executive Director of the Centre for Learning and Educational Development Advocacy (CLED) in Africa, Daniels Akpan has identified the main causes of falling standards of education in Nigeria.
One of the causes, he said, is that 68 percent of teachers in both primary and secondary schools are not prepared for the job.
Akpan told newsmen in Kaduna such teachers are those who cannot find any other job, adding that the easiest opportunity they found was teaching and consequently, they are teaching without passion, without motivation and with no interest.
He said that there is the need to help such persons improve on their quality of service.
“This is because a nation cannot be better than the quality of its graduates, and the graduates cannot be better than the teachers that taught them.
“If you improve on the quality of the teachers, you are in invariably improving the quality of graduates.”
Akpan said that CLEDA-Africa, in collaboration with National Association of Proprietors of Private Schools had trained 177 teachers in Kaduna, Kano and Zamfara states on effective classroom management.
According to him, the effort is part of measures to address the problem.
He said CLEDA-Africa was a nongovernmental organisation working to help youths discover themselves and exploit their potentials.
The director commended the Kaduna State Government for its efforts to provide access to education to all school aged children in the state.
He, however, urged the government to provide the needed facilities for effective service delivery.
Akpan stressed: “It is not about the number of children in school, but about quality education delivery that will produce result.”
Akpan congratulated teachers for marking the 2016 World Teachers’ Day and urged them to be committed and passionate about their profession to build an educated and enlightened nation. [myad]
