October 5 every year is World Teachers Day, a day set aside by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 1994, in recognition of the role of teachers in delivering quality teaching and learning. Teachers play a great role in national development. As the saying goes, teaching is the noblest profession because after parents, the next most important molders of character are teachers.

The three tiers of education — the primary, secondary and tertiary — have training benchmarks. In Nigeria, the Teacher’s Grade II Certificate used to be the minimum for those who teach at the primary school level. Then there are colleges of education and first and higher degrees in education for both secondary and tertiary institutions.

There used to be a deliberate investment in the training of teachers in the country but, just like many other sectors, education has undergone negative changes. Over time, non-professionals started taking up teaching without the requisite training. Yet, training must meet passion and talent for an effective teaching to occur. Adequate infrastructure and good welfare packages are also necessary prerequisites.

Given that successive Nigerian governments have never met the UNESCO education budgetary benchmark of 26 per cent, the sector has been impacted negatively, as less training funds mean that certain trainings are skipped and more professionals are ditching teaching due to lack of satisfaction with the welfare of teachers and lack of infrastructure.

The cliché that ‘teachers reward is in heaven’ has not helped as many young people now see teaching as a thankless tedious job without incentives. But, the unemployment situation has forced many in other fields to take to teaching, even with no passion or training. The effects have been manifesting in the quality of students and even teachers too as the latest result of the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN) has shown.

TRCN is an agency under the Federal Ministry of education established by the TRCN Decree No. 31 of 1993 (now TRCN Act CAP T3 of 2004). It regulates and controls the teaching profession in both the private and public sectors. TRCN registers, licenses and deregisters teachers who drop the ball literally through unethical and unprofessional conducts. Its aim is to maintain teaching standards to internationally accepted levels.

It was therefore a sad Professor Josiah Ajiboye, the council’s registrar, that announced to journalists that 3,043 teachers out of 8,740 examined across the country had failed the TRCN exams. That is 34.82% failure rate. Curiously, Nasarawa, Gombe, Sokoto, Niger, Kebbi, and Plateau states reported over 50 per cent failure rate.

Nasarawa reported a 63.09% failure, Gombe had 61.68% failure, Sokoto (59.32%), Niger (57.39%), Kebbi (53.57%) and Plateau, 52.61% failure. The data also revealed that Lagos, Cross River, Rivers, Osun, Ogun, Imo, and Kano reported the highest percentage pass. Lagos reported 84.44% pass, Cross River (82.31%), Rivers (80.68%), Osun (80.21%), Ogun (79.10%), Imo (78.76%) and Kano (78.73%) pass.

We commend the TRCN for its focus and dedication to the values of the teaching profession, and for trying to maintain standards. We equally commend those teachers that have maintained the quality of good teachers. The quality of education is partly related to the quality of the teachers because no one can give what he or she does not have.

However, we also recognise that good teachers and good education policies are not mutually exclusive. All three tiers of education are handled by the different tiers of government. The local, state and federal authorities must therefore do their parts in terms of providing the needed finance and infrastructure for the education sector. Owing teachers’ salaries and their entitlements have big psychological impact on teachers and prospective teachers. Also, teachers, like other professionals need training and retraining to keep them abreast of developments in the profession.

Politicians must affirm the value of education to nation-building by the priority they accord the sector through policy formulation and execution. It is disappointing that public education is almost non-existent across the country as even teachers, in what is left of public schools, send their own children to private schools.

No action speaks more eloquently about the state of affairs than teachers in the public schools sending their children to private schools and political leaders sending their children abroad for education. Governments must see education as the most important sector that guarantees development and participation in the global community.