SIXTY EIGHT PERCENTS OF TEACHERS IN NIGERIA AFRE ACCIDENTAL TEACHERS - CLEDA - AFRICA

The Centre for Learning and Educational Development Advocacy Africa (CLEDA-Africa), says 68 per cent of primary and secondary school teachers in Nigeria are “accidental teachers’’. Its Executive Director, Mr. Daniels Akpan, said this in Kaduna on Wednesday that the development was hampering delivery of quality education. “Over 68 per cent of teachers in primary and secondary schools in the country are teachers not because they want to be teachers but they are teachers because they cannot find any other job.

 “The easiest opportunity they found was teaching and consequently, they are teaching without passion, without motivation and with no interest,” he said. Akpan said that there was the need, therefore, to help such persons improve on their quality of service. “This is because a nation cannot be better than the quality of its graduates, and the graduates cannot be better than the teachers that taught them. “If you improve on the quality of the teachers, you are in invariably improving the quality of graduates,” he said. He explained that CLEDA-Africa, in collaboration with National Association of Proprietors of Private Schools had trained 177 teachers in Kaduna, Kano and Zamfara states on effective classroom management.

 According to him, the effort is part of measures to address the problem. He said CLEDA-Africa was a non-governmental organization working to help youths discover themselves and exploit their potentials. The director commended Kaduna State Government for its efforts to provide access to education to all school aged children in the state. He, however, urged the government to provide the needed facilities for effective service delivery. “It is not about the number of children in school, but about quality education delivery that will produce result,” he said. Akpan congratulated teachers for marking the 2016 World Teachers’ Day and urged them to be committed and passionate about their profession to build an educated and enlightened nation.