A teacher, Rose Obi, has just won the diadem of the best teacher in the country. The first of its kind, the award, which carries a cash award of N5 million is a laudable reward for intellectual labour in a clime where the importance of teachers seems to have been lost. Yet, Pirkkei Avot, a Jewish Classicist, reminds us that he who learns from his fellow man, even a single letter, must pay him honour.
The winner, who teaches chemistry and mathematics at the Federal Government Girls’ College, Onitsha, Anambra State, will also get N500,000 from her state government; a block of six classrooms will be built in her school by the promoters of the “Maltina Teacher of the Year Award,” in addition to overseas training. This is a commendable initiative.
Apart from her, other teachers: Binta Mohammed, an English teacher from Borno State, who came second, went home with N1 million, while the third, Daniel Udiong, from Akwa Ibom, collected N750,000. Each of them will receive N500,000 from their respective home governments, as state champions. The prized teacher was fished out from a process that involved over 2,000 applicants, which began in May, and was overseen by a panel of six experts, headed by Pat Utomi, a professor. The other panellists were three other professors in the field of education, a journalist, and the National President, All Nigeria Conference of Principals of Secondary Schools.
Instructively, the 37-year-old teacher, on a monthly salary of just N24,000 for eight years, was in the employ of the Parent-Teacher Association of FGGC, Onitsha, despite being a master’s degree holder, before the Federal Ministry of Education regularised her employment two years ago. The indignity of underemployment, where people are being exploited and paid peanuts, forced her spouse to advise her to quit. But she was adamant, savouring what Isidore Okpewho, a professor of comparative literature, once described as the “dignity of intellectual labour.” “It was the passion that kept me. You see where it led me,” Rose enthused with a measured sense of self-fulfilment and candour, after collecting her prize. We appreciate her commitment and tenacity of purpose.
Promoting the dignity of teachers and the teaching profession, which was the essence of the award, was timely, as it coincided with the week the World Teachers’ Day was marked, with the theme: “Empowering Teachers, Building Sustainable Society.” Education is at its nadir in Nigeria because of our misplaced national values and lack of direction. This is why teachers are now seen as part of the dregs of society. With the poor remuneration and low esteem, parents hardly encourage their children to take to teaching. But everyone hankers after good education for his or her child.
Nigeria’s dismal position of 152 out of 187 countries in the 2014 global Human Development Index should teach us that education is everything, and the teacher is its immutable driver. An appreciation of this reality should compel national action to change the lot of teachers for the better, if we are to catch up with the rest of the developed world. So bad is our situation that those who find themselves in the teaching profession see the job as a stop-gap measure, just as it has become an all-comers affair. Yet, teaching is not a mere job, but a great responsibility. It was so in the past, because of the great value attached to education and the respect teachers commanded. We have to rediscover this glorious past.
It is for this reason that UNESCO declared October 5 every year as the World Teachers’ Day. It says, “Despite global recognition of the importance of teachers in changing children’s lives and building sustainable and prosperous societies, they are all too often undervalued….” It is all too easy to forget that everyone that matters in the society is a product of the teacher.
At this year’s Teachers’ Day ceremony, the national President of the Nigeria Union of Teachers, Michael Olukoya, decried the poor conditions of service under which teachers work, especially poor salaries and allowances, often belatedly paid. In a bid to change the status quo, the Federal Government, in agreement with the states in 2011, introduced the 27.5 per cent Teachers Enhancement Allowance. Regrettably, 18 states are yet to implement it. When some primary school teachers earn less than the N18,000 monthly national minimum wage, and even so too with graduates teaching in private schools, commitment and quality of teaching or education will be anything but standard.
The way teachers are treated here sharply contrasts with how their colleagues in Singapore, Finland, the United States, South Korea, Canada, Japan, Switzerland, among others, are treated. A teacher’s annual average salary in Singapore is $45,755; $44,917 in the US; and $43,874 in South Korea.
However, better remuneration is not all there is to improving teaching. In Kwara and Kaduna states, teachers have flunked exams meant for pupils; while in Edo State, a female teacher of 20 years standing failed woefully to read her age declaration during a screening to weed quacks from the system. A whole lot could be done by teachers themselves to win back their once envied respect; certainly not by shielding impostors as their members.
A true teacher should be a purveyor of knowledge, a society’s idol as Socrates and great teachers of the ancient were who left nobody in doubt about their grasp of pedagogy and mastery of their subjects. Unfortunately, evidence shows that most teachers are grossly deficient in these areas. This calls for a critical evaluation of teacher-education at all levels. Training and re-training of teachers for effective classroom transactions cannot be enough, just as overhauling of the inspectorate divisions in states for effective supervision should be treated with a sense of urgency.
States have to create ingenious ways of boosting the morale of their teachers for greater efficiency. Rose is our own Nance Atwell of Maine, the US teacher, who won the $1 million global best teacher award early this year in Dubai, sponsored by the Varkey Foundation. Those who mould children from nothing to give meaning to their lives certainly deserve society’s respect. Indeed, as Jonathan Sacks observed, “… A Life without a teacher is no life.”
