Dregs of Jamb…Human Capital Developers -By Oluwamayowa Lala

Oluwamayowa Lala

I am taking this moment to wish our Jamb candidates good luck in their endeavours. It’s pointblank clear that many of those candidates who are unable to score up to the Jamb cut off mark -180/200, will have to try and secure admissions in polytechnics, monotechnics, etc. but again, can all of these remnants secure admissions in polytechnics and ‘Monotechnics’, you and I know the answer is definitely no, and that invariably means that the rest of our candidates who can’t make it into Universities, Polytechnics and ‘Monotechnics’ will be poured into Colleges of Education, I don’t think I will be too harsh to assume that this fraction(remnants) of Jamb candidates are the people whom Jamb and our education system has rendered at best the most ineligible or at worst ‘dregs’ of JAMB process, In order to be careful, I wouldn’t want to be part of that school of thought that postulates that these are the people that doesn’t have strengths, Of course I believe that they do have strengths, In fact I believe they are still geniuses in their own share of life but we know to an appreciable extent that they are just not fit enough for University Education at the time, and the only palliative that our education system can administer is to assuage them by pouring them into Colleges of Education, In attempts to clean up the streets of Secondary School leavers, we just pour most of these remnants into Colleges of Education.

That’s ingenious, Pouring ‘Dregs’ into education business! You may begin to agree with me at this point that it is a paradox but yet, this is a nostrum that still maintains acceptability for most of our past and present stakeholders in Education(especially Jamb) to that extent that they just leave it there.

This column doesn’t intend in any way whatsoever to rubbish Colleges of Education but it seeks to point ours attention and that of concerned bodies to the kind of misnomer that’s still extant in our Education System in a time like this, The disdainful way with which we have handled education subconsciously is shocking, if ‘dregs’ of Jamb process are now made to become prospective teachers ( custodians of education business), then we should expect wash-outs as graduates (products of Education Business).

In my own thinking, I have always believed that Teacher’s Education should to be one of those strictest Disciplines, if Medicine as a course is accorded with due respect because we know Doctors are custodians of people’s health, then why should teachers who are custodians of children destinies or children future be a hogwash system, the future of our human capital lies in the hands of teachers and yet there is this abysmal level of complacency in the process with which we recruit people into education business as teachers. That’s totally unacceptable. Left to me, the way lawyers-in-the-making, doctors-in-the-making are all being compelled to follow a formal dress code in our universities, teachers-in-the-making should also be subjected to this level of discipline whatever it takes.

In fact the years of study should be extended like others. After all, the rationale behind the adoption of teacher’s course (grade 2 and the likes) during the colonial rule was because the colonial masters obviously needed more hands on teaching job, they needed more teachers hence the running of short course for teachers. Education has gone farther than what we had in the colonial era and its quite worrisome that we still have this kwashiorkored process for bringing people into education business.

Other professions give importance to practicing with license, they don’t joke with license, but education enterprise has become that hidey-hole where every Tom, Dick and Harry can hastily retire into after trying their lucks in various jobs without much success, it has become a refuge for charlatans. To make it more clearer,aren’t we beginning to have many cases of Secondary leavers (sometimes drop-outs) becoming teachers overnight, they also deem themselves fit to garbage-in-garbage-out after all it’s not some abracadabra, they only need to find one of these ‘Mushrooming’ Private Schools littering the society to absorb them into the business of education. I think it is high time that teachers also begin to operate with license, the need to practice with license should be enforced throughout the education system in Nigeria so that these impostors can be smoked out of their hidey-holes…I learnt that “there are cheaters and there are teachers”, a country’s education system can never rise above the level of trainers it has.

Teacher’s education shouldn’t be treated like hogwash because these people are the ones making the future of this country. They are the ones that are building the human capital of this country, Starting from Kindergarten teachers to the University Lecturers, we should start having people who are epitome of discipline, people who products of a through system. As a teacher, I have learnt how important it is for teachers to pass through a ruthlessly efficient system and not an hogwash or wishy-washy system where we pour the remains of Jamb process into Education establishments. It is by attending to these issues as narrated hitherto and hereafter that teachers can begin to attract the veneration that they deserve.

That reminds me of those days when we used to hold debates on whether we like to be a teacher or another professional (most times a doctor), the truth then and now is that many students still hate to be teachers, because right from time, our society doesn’t place correct value on teachers, they are been treated as clowns.

In fact I don’t believe Teacher’s Education should be a year lesser than other University Courses/Disciplines, the time of study ought to be extended so that the course contents can further be enriched. Something is wrong somewhere, We have not been giving enough to Teacher’s Education in this country, the rate of inefficiency among our workforce in Education remains most disturbing.

At this point in our national life, when some countries are beginning to optimise their human resources to generate wealth for their country, many activists had for long being advocating that it’s time for our government to have a mental shift from oil to other areas of wealth creation, they’ve established pointers that we need to start harnessing our human capital, if we want to do that perfectly well, this is the time to start reforming those abnormalities in our education system (maybe) starting from the trainers, raising the standard of the teachers (human resources) that are being put in charge of education establishments. We can by so doing begin to have quality human capital.

Oluwamayowa Lala
Educationist, Essayist and Programmer.
Mayowalala@gmail.com