(678) TEACHER COMPETENCY TEST AND POLITICS IN NIGERIA: AN ASSESSMENT OF ITS IMPACT ON EDUCATION

摘要

The poor educational achievement among students in public primary and secondary schools acrossthe country has raised concerns as to the factor responsible. Even though some parents prefer to puttheir wards in expensive private primary and secondary schools as panacea to poor outcomes, a greatproportion of Nigerian parents still have their children attending public schools. The advent of civiliandemocratic government at various levels of governance since 1999 has opened up debate on theneed to remedy the situation. Consequently many governments at local, state and federal levels havedirected attention in terms of improving funding to these schools as well as the welfare of teachers.But despite these efforts, performance in external examinations conducted by bodies such as theWest African Examination Council (WAEC), National Examination Council (NECO) and the JointAdmission and Matriculation Examination (JAMB) indicates that some other factors beside theaforementioned also require attention. Beside the fact that students who intend to become teachers donot usually excel while in school and that many talented students are uninterested in teaching careersbecause the pay and job satisfaction are low. Low pay and lack of job satisfaction also have causedmany good teachers to leave the teaching profession for other well paying jobs; the depth ofincompetence in the system was not obvious until one of Nigeria's fourth republic governorsconfronted one of the teachers who unable to read simple lines correctly. This was reinforced bysimilar action taken by the Kwara state government in which a teacher was unable to pass anexamination she gave to her pupils. Consequently, Policy makers riding on this wave against teachersbegan to suggest several ways to keep incompetent teachers out of the profession, welcome a waveof the policy of competency text which was stoutly opposed by the teachers union, but adamantlypursued by some state governors, precipitating conflicts between the governors and teachers unionincluding strikes. But payback started with the unexpected lost of election by Kayode Fayemi whichpundits have attributed among others to the way he handled the teachers competency test in his statethus precipitating panic and policy of reversals. The questions that therefore arise are whatnecessitated the policy in the first place? Why are the teachers opposed to it? What are the impactson electoral politics? And what is the implication on education?