Raising the Bar for Professionals
Rebecca Ejifoma, writes that Dr. Abimbola Ogundere, through her new book ‘The Right Teacher’, is championing the movement for a generation of better skilled, influential, successful, and right teachers
The Right Teacher’ – a book with a penchant to change the paradigm set of this generation of teachers and refine their practice to enable them serve as highly skilled, significant, influential and successful professionals
Dr. Abimbola Ogundere, a teacher by profession and medical doctor by training, is a reflection of passion-cumaction. Her determination is solidly backed up by the fact that teaching is the noblest of professions and holds great opportunities for the growth and development of any nation.
She is the Director of the Kids’ Court School and Convener of the Learning As I Teach Foundation – an SDG four initiative centered on improving teacher quality through providing quality Continuous Professional Development to Nigerian teachers.
Quite recently, she authored the best selling book ‘The Right Teacher’ – a book with a penchant to change the paradigm set of this generation of teachers and refine their practice to enable them serve as highly skilled, significant, influential and successful professionals.
To break the ice, Ogundere highlighted the fact that the field of teaching is not without its challenges. Globally, the teaching profession is grossly undervalued, underestimated and teachers are largely underpaid.
“Teachers are subjected to poor working conditions and often lack the necessary resources to make teaching effective in the 21st century. Yet, amidst these limiting factors, teachers still take on the herculean task of molding the minds of the next generation,” she expressed sadly.
Indeed, the expert described teaching as the single most important school-based factor that affects learning outcomes for children. Hence, she vowed to keep lending her voice, time and expertise relentlessly to advocate for the total rebranding of the profession, one teacher at a time.
In her words: “I'm passionate about teachers, improving their quality, and putting a structure in place for their development. My foundation, ‘Learning As I Teach’, has empowered over 10,000 teachers in Nigeria through trainings to become better with a higher level of efficacy.”
Now, for the doctor, teaching is her calling. Having gone through the discipline and rigour of medical school, it prepared her adequately to not only become an outstanding teacher but also to take head-on the challenges of the industry.
Right Teacher’s Book
Undoubtedly, her philosophy with regards to teaching and learning has paved the way for The Right Teacher's book, which is a sure guide for teachers to become worthy professionals of impact and influence in the 21st century.
The Right Teacher is an easy-to-read book with a systematic and easy to understand model of the prized traits of a teacher worth his or her salt in this age and time.
Indeed, the author believes very firmly that raising teachers’ standards is a missing link in developing the education sector. She asserted, “Time and again, research has shown that the teacher quality is the single most important school-based factor that affects learning outcomes for children”.
“It, therefore, goes without saying that if you can improve the quality of teachers inadvertently, you are improving the quality of students,” she added.
On The Right Teacher book’s target audience, the author identified that it is for those with a mandate to teach – whether within or outside the four walls of a school. This, therefore, broadens the scope to involve not only formal qualified teachers and lecturers but also parents, guardians, school owners and even government policy makers.
“The Right Teacher book is a veritable guide which explains the standard of teachers that we should have even in out faculties of learning and colleges of education,” she enthused.
Charge to Government
As teachers work to improve their craft, there remains a void that government and the society at large must fill. She highlighted this as: “they can collectively wield their influence and advocate for positive change in the areas of teacher quality”.
She continued boldly that the government could ensure that only professionally qualified teachers take on the prestigious role of ‘teacher’; advocating that working conditions for teachers are at par with those of their counterparts in the oil industry and telecommunications for example.
On how to improve teachers’ skill to meet up with global trends, Ogundere emphasised the need for vital collaborations between the government and the private sector through public private partnerships.
When these key stakeholders collaborate on a level playing field, they will have a more holistic view of the problems faced in the sector and ultimately create policies that will to improve the teachers’ total well-being from redefined working conditions to better remuneration for teachers, to ultimately improving the quality and standard of the school.
She, however, suggested that a perfect wage for teachers should be the kind that not only affords entry level teachers the opportunity to take care of their basic needs but they must also be capable of buying a car, building a house and affording the best quality of education for their children. In addition to this, teachers should be able to save up conveniently to go on personal or family vacations to refuel after a long and demanding school year.
Passion
Another important reason Ogundere is keen on pushing the agenda of teachers is because of the overall impact these teachers have on the children. To echo her sentiments, she said, “The future of Nigeria is at stake. When teachers are not good enough, the quality of children that we churn out becomes obviously not good enough”.
To further drive home her goal, the teacher said the impact of the Learning As I Teach foundation has since extended beyond the shores of Lagos as teachers from across the country continue to partner through the different platforms of the foundation to learn and share vital information with regards to teaching and learning.
Her words: “In this season, the Right Teacher Book Tour is paving the way for the author’s philosophy on teaching to spread to teacher communities in the different geopolitical zones in Nigeria. Having successfully launched the book in the UK and Lagos Nigeria, the book will be touring Abuja, Port Harcourt cities as well as Kano and Delta states.”
Ogundere went further to define a qualified teacher as someone who has successfully completed a course in Education with a degree certificate as evidence.
While an NCE, a Bachelor's degree, Postgraduate Diploma or Master's degree in education qualify the holders to teach, candidates in her experience often need to be refined to be higher quality teachers.
Consequently, The Right Teacher’s book has come to shape educators to be skilled, committed to personal success and learner's success, be significant within and outside his classroom wielding influence in the school, community and the nation at large.
Raising Entry Point
She frowned at some downgrading practices. “The entry point for teaching profession needs to be raised. The Faculty of Education has one of the lowest cut off marks to gain admission in university suggesting that unsuccessful people pursue a career in education. This attitude must change”.
Reminiscing about her recent conversation with a group of Finnish educators that visited Nigeria, they shared that their top students are the ones that venture into teaching. “So many structures must have been in place to achieve that level – it is a field not for the bottom 10 per cent but for the top five per cent”.
Call for Collaboration
Sadly, Ogundere admitted to the hydra-headed nature of the challenges that face the education sector. She pointed to governmental support and initiatives such as the Learning As I Teach Foundation as a panacea to initiate programs and policies that would stem the tide of poor quality teachers in Nigeria.
Accordingly, she enthused that The Learning As I Teach foundation provides free training to teachers through multiple platforms both online and offline. Teachers who have been trained through the foundation also have access to further training sessions, newsletters and the online Telegram group which hosts over 1000 teachers. On making education more attractive, the author cited UNICEF's recommendations as the ideal way to go to bring about change. She noted that 20 per cent of a nation's budget should be for education.
“If we really believe that education is important, a weapon that the nation can wield to change itself for better, then we must put our money where our mouth is and provide enough within our budget for education”.
With this, she maintained that the quality of teacher training, the facilities, and the remuneration needs will consequently become more attractive.
While she established that teaching is a gift and teachers are fundamental to the greatness and success of any nation, she punctuated her messaged: “The sooner that we, as a nation place a radar on the teachers, and ensure that the profession takes its pride of place, the sooner our nation, Nigeria, and Africa at large, will become successful”.