Agitations to award degrees by COEs unnecessary, unfounded

All his working life, retired Professor of Education, Lawrence Ocho, has been in and around the education sector. From a humble beginning as a primary school headmaster, he went on to become a secondary school principal; provost of college of education as well as former director, Mature Students’ Programme at the Enugu State University among others.  Now retired, Ocho in this interview with LAWRENCE NJOKU proffers solutions to some of Nigeria’s niggling educational challenges, especially teacher training. Excerpts:

What is your assessment of the country’s educational system?

My assessment is that the quality of education in Nigeria is worsening by the day. If you accept my definition, that the purpose of education is to increase and redefine our sensitivity to the existence of others; to lessen our preoccupation with self, and aggrandisement, then you will agree with me that the Nigerian education system is ineffective.

At all levels of life in Nigeria, everywhere you turn, you notice Nigerians demonstrate a glaring lack of consideration for others. On the road, the policeman is taking bribe; in the schools including universities, the teachers are accepting bribes in exchange for unmerited grades; at employment centres, the job goes to the highest bidder; in the shops, fake products are sold, and at the fuel station, the pump is tampered with and nobody is bothered about the feeling of others.

The most important aim of education is the cultivation of moral values; these are values that make it possible for people to live in and be happy in the society. A high court judge; a medical doctor, or a professor who takes bribe, is not educated. An educated man shows it in his relations with others.

Our schools are no longer educative because the headmaster and teachers are not serious with their work. They are irregular in school attendance; they do not prepare notes of lessons, and they encourage the children to cheat during examinations. Some school principals are so corrupt that all children who take external examinations in their schools must pass. Parents are always willing to pay extra for such favours.

What do we teach our children by such actions?

We are teaching them that the end justifies the means, and that it does not matter what you do to pass an examination. What matters is to pass. The children see this all around them and so, as they grow, they improve on the thieving and bribing methods of their parents and teachers. Stealing millions of Naira is no longer news in Nigeria and we cannot organise fair and violence–free elections because we are not educated.

So, what then can we do to improve the system?

A farmer usually selects good seed yams for planting. So, we need morally upright teachers and headmasters/headmistresses in our primary schools. The teacher training process must involve regular weeding out morally and intellectually poor students in teacher training institutions. Teaching conditions must be good enough to attract the best brains into the profession. The best behaved and the best intellectually qualified teachers should be selected for training as inspectors and supervisors of education. A regular system of school inspection must be established so that teachers who do not meet the standards are weeded out as a matter of policy. Primary and secondary schools should be handed over to voluntary agencies with the capability and qualified personnel to run and supervise the schools. Post primary school boards and primary education boards should be so organised that they keep the voluntary agencies on their toes all-year round.

Government must take steps to eliminate examination malpractice in schools. External examination bodies such as WAEC or NECO should stop using centres where it is obvious that principals bribe invigilators to look the other way during examinations. When parents, teachers, principals and invigilators cooperate to teach the youth to be dishonest, to pass examinations without working for it, theygrow up to be unrepentant cheaters, armed robbers, kidnappers, liars and murderers. My fear is that if nothing is done to educate the coming generation, Nigeria will return to the dark ages.

What do you make of the demand by provosts for the review of existing laws to enable colleges of education to award degrees?

Education institutions have been graded all over the world. You start from the primary, to the secondary before you move to the tertiary and when you get to the tertiary, there are also subdivisions. So I don’t understand the basis of their pressure to become degree awarding.

In fact left to me, we ought to start training teachers after the secondary school. I would rather want the Grade 11 Teachers’ Certificate to remain so that people who do not have it should not be allowed to apply to study education. The most important instrument for education is the teacher. If the teacher’s knowledge is poor, of course the children will be poor and won’t learn much. I regard the teacher as the seedling and you always select the best seedlings for planting and the ones that are not very good are consumed. I am thinking that rather than remove the lower sections of the teaching profession starting from Grade 11, I will prefer that we have Grade 11 teachers, then we have the NCE and graduate teachers so that before anybody gets to become a university teacher, he would have had all the experiences. Before one get on to become a teacher in the college of education, he would have had a long experience. This will enable him be able to discuss all aspects of education and understand teaching the way it should be and connections between them. If am allowed to make any input as regards their pressure, I will say it is not necessary and unfounded.

Their argument is that it is not proper to subject their students to the same university matriculation examination

In that regard, I will call for a separate examination, and if the government will allow this, the best candidates should be those going for teachers training, those opting to teach should be the best and for them to be the best, government must be paying the teachers more than you pay the rest of the workers so that you can attract the best brains. The future of the country is in the school, not anywhere else, the quality of the human beings will depend on the quality of the teachers and so if the government agrees to pay teachers higher, you will see the best brain agree to teach. I don’t support one examination for all candidates going into tertiary institutions.
Dearth of infrastructure leads to incessant strikes by teachers, non- teachers and even demonstration by students in our higher institutions.

How can this be curbed?

In the first place, most of these strikes are uncalled for. When you talk about infrastructure as the cause, I know that stakeholders in the sector have always asked for 26 per cent of the budget for education and I support that on the condition that the 26 per cent is actually invested in education. I will support increased funding for education based on the infrastructural needs of the system. When I call for increased funding, I call attention also to research knowing that those interested have funding for research. Research funds are available in Nigeria and overseas and I urge our lecturers to apply for it. On the other hand, people are complaining that salaries are not remunerative enough, so you will get the poorest brains into the class. The standard of education in this country is very poor because of the quality of teachers. So my take will be to get the best train by increased funding of the sector.

At what age should teachers retire from service?

The way I see teaching is that if one is serious, the older he becomes, the better he gets in teaching. When we were undergraduates at Nsukka, one of our best teachers was over seventy years of age. He was the best because he had taught for a long time. So if the government increases the age of retirement for teachers, especially for those doing well, it will be a good thing and it will enhance productivity and promote quality. They may do this by setting a standard; for instance, if your retirement age must be increased, report on you must be positive that you are a good teacher so that it becomes a selecting process for the teachers.

I have been in the classroom, though I retired at the age of 65 in 2005. I am still in the classroom in the university, because they know that we deliver better than the young people. If health permits, at 80, I should be able to continue to teach. So it should be determined by the person’s ability and health and not necessarily age to determine when somebody should leave. I started teaching in the primary school, then I just completed standard six and did one year training in Preliminary Training College (PTC) and I was posted to teach. I was so happy and enjoyed teaching the children and after one year, I was sent to St. Charles Secondary School, Onitsha and when I completed at Onitsha, I was immediately made the headmaster of a primary school. I would say it was most exciting because, it made me become so much responsible not just to the students and teachers, but to the community. Those days, the highest person in the church was also the highest person in the school; I was looked upon for several things.

Have you really enjoyed your profession?

I have enjoyed my profession and I am fully satisfied with what I have done and will continue to do as a teacher. If you start thinking about those I taught, I find them in all areas of life. Two of them had been ministers and there is no place in Nigeria that I go and I don’t meet people I taught.

Your biography is ready for presentation to the public, what would you use the proceeds for?

I want to raise money for Ocho Educational Foundation which was a foundation founded in 2011 after I retired and it was a kind of retirement gift whereby people agreed to contribute money to help indigent persons through it. Those of us who are indigent understand what it meant because by the time I started my education, my father was already dead. He died the very year I started school in 1945. It was my mother and relations who helped and I was able to have a university degree. So when friends and my children decided to set up a foundation, I said that was the greatest thing anybody can do for me so as to help others find themselves in school the way I found myself. The foundation started operating in 2011 and has been on till now. Since the foundation started in 2011, 85 persons have benefited from it.