Teacher's retraining is a continuous exercise intended to improve on the performance of teachers. It exposes the participants to modern teaching aids and methodologies that have come on stream since the completion of their training.
Such programmes usually include short courses, seminars, symposiums and workshops organised during weekends and vacations and normally do not interfere with the normal academic programme of the institution. Such training programmes are beneficial to teachers who are already grounded in the art and are only desirous to upgrade their skills to internationally acceptable level.
The retraining programme envisaged for the Nigerian teachers in the current scenario would seek to impart basic subject knowledge and teaching skills to teachers, who are proven to be incompetent as a result of deficiencies in their training programme.
It would attempt to completely overhaul a completely collapsed system and would of necessity require a longer period of time, running into months or probably years, and would require the participants' withdrawal from service during the training period.
For the effective implementation of the training scheme, all teachers who are deficient in subject area would be required to train at an institution specialised in the relevant subjects and be certified to be sufficiently knowledgeable in their field of specialisation to be considered suitable to return to the teaching position.
Those who are deficient in teaching methodology also will thereafter proceed to upgrade their knowledge of the teaching methodologies in an appropriate institution. On the other hand, a candidate who is considered competent in the subject knowledge during the screening exercise would proceed directly to train in teaching methodologies only.
This will maximise the use of personnel which we envisage would be acutely in short supply at the commencement of the screening and retraining exercise. At the end of the training programme, the quality of graduates from these special institutes must be certified by a regulatory body.
This is an important safety latch in the proposed retraining programme and performance in these certification examinations would be a reflection of the effectiveness of the training institutes and provide the necessary feedback required to modulate their activities. Envisaged in this exercise is a need for qualified teachers to fill the positions vacated by the insolvent teachers.
As a stopgap measure, we suggest that the vacancies may be filled by graduates certified to be knowledgeable in the subject areas who may not possess the appropriate teaching qualifications. Such teachers would then proceed to acquire the additional knowledge in appropriate teaching methodologies on full study leave with pay at the appropriate time and at the designated institution.
A regulatory body which shall be known as the Nigeria Teachers' Certification Council (NTCC) will be central in the successful transformation of teachers in Nigeria's basic educational system.
NTCC would ultimately be responsible for the quality assurance of every teacher produced by every teacher's training establishment in the country, including the universities. They would also be involved in the accreditation of facilities and programmes in all colleges of education and faculties of education in all Nigerian universities in parallel with the NUC to ensure stringent quality control of their products.
The certification process shall be conducted in two parts to ascertain the proficiency in subject area and teaching methodologies respectively. A teacher must first be found proficient in the knowledge of the teaching subject before he is eligible for assessment in teaching methodology.
A teacher who has passed both the certification examinations may now be presented for registration by the Teachers' Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN).
This process should eliminate poor quality teachers within three years. To prevent further influx of unqualified teachers into the school systems, all teachers produced by the teachers training institutions in the country must be subjected to the two stage certification exercise by NTCC before licensing by TRCN. Amendments must be made to the teachers training curriculum to ensure that teachers graduating from the colleges and institutes are knowledgeable both in the subject and methodology of teaching.
An assemblage of highly qualified teachers would set the stage for remodelling the destiny of the highly intelligent Nigerian children and by extrapolation the destiny of our dear nation Nigeria.
But this potential must be properly harnessed by efficient administrative machinery. Such machinery is currently lacking in virtually every strata of our educational system. A responsible and responsive administrative component devoid of the inefficiency and corruption of the present system and insulated from the political, tribal and religious sentiments must be established to oversee this transformation plan in the basic education sector. The nation is tired.
The current random government interventions have been going on for too long with nothing tangible to show for it. There must be a comprehensive nationwide effort. The various governments in Nigeria must wake up and effect the changes we need, beginning with the classroom teachers, who are potentially the most important force in the educational system and the key to the long awaited renaissance. Otokunefor is a professor of microbiology at the University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria.
