Education Minister laments large number of unqualified teachers

dimeji akinloye

December 7, 2015 9:51 PM

Teachers must have basic qualification in education henceforth - Minister

Minister of State for Education, Prof. Anthony Anwuka

The Minister of State for Education, Prof. Anthony Anwuka, says there is a large number of unqualified teachers at the nation’s basic education level.

Anwuka made the remark at the Annual Education Conference organised by the Education Data, Research and Evaluation in Nigeria Initiative (EDOREN), in Abuja on Monday.

The minister said inefficient application of evidence in policy and planning had hampered production of qualified teachers for that level of education.

"Effective planning and administration in the system has been made difficult because of poor data collection and analysis; hence large number of unqualified teachers in the system.

"Over the years, what we have are pretenders to teaching who have taken advantage of lack of regulation in the system.

"Henceforth, anybody that will be in the classroom must have a basic qualification in education’’, he said.

Anwuka said the ministry will use the outcome of the conference to improve the education sector.

Pai Obanya, Prof. Emeritus, Institute of Education, University of Ibadan, said data drought was a major challenge to the education sector.

According to him, data collection and analysis must be taken seriously to address lack of meaningful access to education.

He said data had three key elements namely: figures, facts and feelers, which must be factored in.

"You do not stop at figures alone, you must go for the facts; facts involve breaking down the figures.

"Feelers appear when you begin to interrogate figures; for example, what type of homes do boys who drop out of school come from?

"Let us go back and take care of data drought in the society for effective planning’’, he said.

Earlier, Prof. Oladele Akogun, ENDOREN’s Country Director, Nigeria, said the network was aimed at embedding research, evaluation and learning in education sector.

He said ENDOREN sought to enhance capacities to generate, use quality educational data, research and evaluation for policy and strategy making through support from the Department for International Development (DFID).

The 2015 conference was organised in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Education, British Council and United Nations International Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

The theme is "Making Evidence Work for Basic Education Policy and Practice in Nigeria.’’

dimeji akinloye