One way government cheats public schools

Sir: There is an age-long tradition in Nigeria’s education sectorwhich needs to stop if the government really wants the very best for learners in the public schools. The tradition is allowing teachers of public schools to always supervise external examinations. The practice must be abolished because it represents a big distraction to the teachers in the discharge of their function and also an infringement on the right of learners to proper education since each time any teacher leaves his place of primary assignment to supervise external examinations, the learners are abandoned to their fate and are constantly at the receiving end. This is quite unfair.

Teachers all over the public schools are already employed and must be allowed to focus on the jobs for which they receive salaries. While teachers in private schools receive very poor salaries in comparison with their public schools counterparts, they are never allowed to supervise any external examinations by very strict school owners and that is the main reason all top public officers send their children there.

It is only in public schools, including Federal Government colleges, where every abnormality is allowed that teachers leave their jobs every time in the excuse of supervising external examinations, abandoning the children of the poor in their care and still collecting their full salaries at the end of the month. This can only happen in a country where leaders only pay lipservice to the issue of functional education for its citizens.

Examination bodies are also complicit in this issue and should from now wash their hands clean. There should be a standing rule against anyone already in full employment taking up examinations supervisory roles because it affects their jobs and contradicts works ethics.Teachers in government payroll should never be allowed to leave their duty posts to supervise external exams because it creates avoidable loopholes in their places of primary assignment and affects the children concerned adversely.

There are thousands of graduates searching for jobs who can be invited by examination bodies and groomed to handle such assignments effectively. That will create temporary assignments for them and also an avenue to make some money while waiting for permanent employment. The excuse in some quarters that people needed to supervise exams must be those that can easily be traced or pinned down does not hold any water in a nation with serious-minded leaders since the law is always there to handle every act of criminality.

The government’s top officers should stop the idea of putting their own children in choice private schools while experimenting with and sacrificing the future of the children of the poor because there is nobody to plead their cause. Members of the National Assembly should kick the ball rolling by legislating against the practice, which has been on for ages and is actually one of the reasons there is so much noticeable rot in Nigeria’s public schools.

• Jide Oyewusi, retired Director of Education, is also the Coordinator of Ethics Watch International, Lagos