The results of the competency tests for teachers in Kaduna state opened up a can of worms on the quality of teachers available in Nigeria today.

Commentaries on the outcome of the tests have drifted from the appropriateness of issuing the tests to the right means to be followed in handling the 21,000 defaulting teachers. But there is little disagreement that a similar situation could be found in other states of the federation if the primary four tests were to be administered across board.

Such outcomes would betray the fact that teacher training have been a feature of teacher recruitment for primary and junior secondary schools across the federation. Data sourced by Eduplana shows that the Federal Teachers Scheme has carried out training for teachers of the 36 states plus Abuja. Between 2006 and 2015, at least 45,000 persons have been recruited in the scheme, where a less number completes the process and an even lesser number of persons are recruited.

In the period for which the data was sourced, 37,869 teachers completed the training process for primary schools across the federation (with the exception of Benue, Ekiti, Enugu, Ondo and Rivers states). The number is lower for junior secondary schools, with data unavailable for many states.

Adamawa state had the highest number of retained primary school teachers from the scheme with 2551 teachers, while Akwa Ibom and Imo are the other states with above 2000 primary school teachers retained. Kaduna state, with 914, is one of eight states (including Lagos, Ekiti and Abia) with less than 1000 teachers completing the training process and being retained. Niger state had just 24 retained teachers.



What does the retention percentage as a factor of number of recruitment say? Could it be the quality control measures and level of competition involved in each state? For example, data for Lagos shows 2445 teachers were recruited, with 2357 completing the scheme; only 410 were retained, giving 16.76%. The fraction for Bayelsa state is 8.81 %, about half that of Lagos, and Kaduna’s is about double that of Lagos at 33.16%.

Given the fallout from the competency tests in Kaduna, the figures would not appear to represent an insistence on “quality” but perhaps a lack of it. Then again, that would not be expected to be the case in Lagos where the standard of teachers in public schools can be regarded as better than Kaduna. Perhaps the competency tests would be required to provide more clarity.

The data raises questions concerning the need to make conscious efforts towards increasing the quality of teachers. Measures to attract the right capable persons into the profession should be a deliberate goal of Government. This would imply that the conditions of service for the teaching profession would have to be improved drastically from its present state if persons who actually have the ability and desire to teach are to forfeit the possibility of better incomes in other careers.

Until such measures are put in place, the quality of persons indicating interest to form Nigeria’s future leaders from the basic level and the percentage of those eventually retained, would fall short of the standard necessary to meet the human capital development ambitions of the country.

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By Alexander O. Onukwue