Teachers’ attitude a challenge to basic education – SUBEB chairman
Basic education in Edo State seems to be on the decline. What is the board doing to reposition it?
I don’t know if statistics support what people are saying about the decline of primary education. But giving the population of pupils, I think there is the tendency to be misled into believing that it is declining. There has been an explosion of children enrolling into primary schools in the state but the number of teachers has remained the same due to the financial profile of the state. The teacher-pupils ratio is low. More pupils are being admitted today because of advocacy and awareness.
Secondly, we are also having the issue of training and retraining of teachers, and we have allowed teaching to become an all comers’ job. But now we want to ensure that teaching is professionalised because professional teachers would handle pupils better. So far the state has invested massively in education through infrastructure and improving teachers’ profile.
You mentioned an explosion in pupils’ enrolment into primary schools, what is the ratio presently?
When I assumed office, the ratio was low but now we have about 70 percent pupils’ enrolment. The ratio improved when the state intervened with the policy of no tuition fees, which UBEC implemented, coupled with massive sensitisation and advocacy by the board on the need for children to go to school. As a result of this, there has been a great increase in the number of children’s enrolment across the state.
With upsurge in the population
Malam Suleman Ali is the Acting Chairman of Edo State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB). In this interview, he speaks on the challenges of basic education and steps taken to ensure quality education in the state. Excerpt:
of pupils, what is the board doing to address shortage of teachers in the state?
Lack of teachers has been the bane of basic education, people are retiring but there are no replacements. There is general dearth of teachers as the last administration did not employ people they could not pay. We have interviewed over 21,000 persons for teaching and over 5,000 were penciled down to be employed though it is a far cry from what we need. This happened in the twilight of former governor Adams Oshiomhole’s administration. The idea to massively inject teachers into the school system was to ensure that infrastructure put in place was not done in vain. Governor Godwin Obaseki, was the driving force of that administration and has inherited the policies. So, effort is on to ensure that teachers are recruited to run the school system effectively and optimally.
Motivation of teachers is lacking in our education system. What is the board doing to ensure that teachers in the state are motivated?
We have improved the general profile of teachers. Edo is the only state where a teacher rose to become a Permanent Secretary, teachers can rise to level 17. We may have some challenges in terms of allowances which government has undertaken to pay in no distant time. The only problem we have is attitudinal on the part of teachers for them to show enough gratitude or appreciation on the efforts of the government. In terms of salary, Edo has assumed a pride of place in the comity of states as far as Nigeria is concerned. Training and retraining of teachers is our priority. Edo has done well in the general motivation of teachers.
What are the challenges of basic education in the state?
It can’t be removed from the general systemic problem of the nation like funding, lack of teachers and training and retraining of teachers. The teaching force is depleting without replacement. We also have problem of some of the newly built schools being vandalised and the money to intervene in other areas where we still have challenge of infrastructure and teachers now going back to fix vandalised structures. We also have challenges in monitoring and inspection, there are no vehicles while qualitative monitoring officers for effective monitoring are also not there.
Many children of school age are on the streets hawking. Is there plan by the board to ensure that such children go to school?
Our quality assurance department has been given matching order to identify those children and trace their homes. We have started with Edo South Senatorial District through community town advocacy to ensure that parents are mobilised and sensitized to take their children to school. We would be meeting community leaders, traditional rulers, NGO, religious bodies as well as School Management Basic Committee (SMBC) in respective communities on this issue. The town hall meeting would also be held in Edo Central and Edo North Senatorial districts with the stakeholders so that people would be aware that tuition is free and that no child of school age would be out of school.
You said tuition is free but there are allegations that some headmasters are still collecting money to register pupils?
We are aware of it and when we get such complaint we act promptly. We have some headmasters and mistresses that have been removed and others undergoing disciplinary action. But most parents do not report. When we hold the town hall meeting, we are going to tell them that basic education is free and should not pay money to anybody.