KADUNA TEACHERS IMBROGLIO: The Solution To The Intricate Dilemma

The sacking of teachers by the Kaduna State Government is really a saddening situation and so is the teachers' inability to defend their profession in their recent assessment.

The awkward situation we are currently battling with in respect of the rot in the standard of education is getting people torn apart in their opinions. I cannot think of any pleasant solution to this intricate dilemma.

Let me set your imagination a little bit aflame. What would you have done if all of a sudden you find yourself in the shoe of Kaduna State Governor? If you put the sympathy for the sacked teachers and the future of the innocent pupils on the balance scale, which side should outweigh the other? Are you going to yield to the sympathy for these unqualified teachers and let them continue as teachers not minding what nonsense they teach? Do you know that by so doing you are automatically killing the future of innocent children who are mostly from less-privileged families? Perhaps, you may choose to opt for retraining them as the nice solutions often preferred and proffered by many people. The latter is the common solution suggested only by people who either do not know what retraining entails or are blinded by prejudice.

Retraining entails intellectual empowerment in terms of methodology of teaching, curriculum application, educational management and all other contents and precepts of teacher education. How can you retrain someone who doesn't know how to spell? Do you want the retraining to include re-teaching them hand-writing, alphabets, rudiments of basic science and arithmetic? If that is your thinking, then you should have suggested they get enrolled in primary school again as adult pupils.

Looking at the legality or otherwise of KDSG's assessment of teachers, it is obvious that TRCN is legally responsible for the assessment and registration of teachers as backed by the TRCN Decree N0. 31 of 1993.

However, this does not rob the state government of its right to ensure qualitative service delivery.

It is terribly shocking to lose a job and more shocking it is to have teachers who are not capable of doing the job. I pray and hope Allah (SWT) may open His door of blessing to the victims.

- Ibrahim Bello Zauma