FG slow in tackling science teachers shortfall, say stakeholders

Despite the much talked about efforts by the Federal Government to address the shortfall in the number of science teachers across Nigeria, especially in secondary schools, stakeholders have expressed concerns at the slow pace of the government in achieving this, BusinessDay findings show.

This is as industry watchers say low public esteem and remuneration have adversely affected the recruitment and retention of quality teachers, stressing the availability of quality teachers in Nigeria is extremely low in science subjects and mathematics, which are key drivers of economies across the globe.

With majority of secondary schools grossly understaffed, coupled with under-qualified academics and no effective staff development programme, experts say it will take more than just policy statement from the government to solve the lingering challenge in the education sector.

Concerned industry experts observe that advanced and emerging economies like India and China have long embraced development of human capital (teachers) in the use of science and technology-related aspect of learning to develop their economy, but regret that the same cannot be said of Nigeria with the largest GDP in Africa.

They query a situation where the country with it huge population has consistently failed to realise and tap into the huge opportunities that investing in teacher training in science, technology, engineering and mathematics courses will have in the overall development of her economy.

Anderson Ezeibe, chemistry lecturer at Federal Polytechnic Nekede, Imo State, says strategic investment in teacher development that handle courses in science and technology is the driving force of development in advanced economies, while also expressing concern over the Federal Government lip service to science and technology development.

Ezeibe opines that secondary education is important to national development because it builds on the educational gains of basic education, with a view to preparing students for higher learning in tertiary education level.

He is worried that the lack of the present deplorable state of post- basic schools, low level of teachers‘ development and inadequate teachers‘ commitment to teaching and ill-equipped laboratories have further cast doubt about the Federal Government Vision 20: 2020 projections for education in general and science education in particular.

He further regrets that the enrolment figures for science and technology courses in the country are on the decline as students are not encouraged to take up job s as teachers in science-related fields.

“Government needs to fund the development of human capital, infrastructure in science, technology, engineering and mathematics because this will drive economic growth,” he says.

On his part, Pascal Odibo, group country director, Jeff and O’Brien, an international knowledge development firm, reveals that the reason some nations are greater than the others has nothing to do with what is under their soil in terms of natural resources, but it has everything to do with how they have been able to galvanise their human capital.

Odibo wonders why Nigeria, as the highest receiver of foreign direct investment for more than four to five years running, cannot pattern such investment into the funding of science-related fields that would drive growth.

“Until Nigeria begins to use her natural resources to develop sustainable resources, which are her people, the country will keep frittering it away,” he says.

He says the challenge Nigeria has is that it keeps investing in facilities and on physical infrastructure, adding that if the government spends one-tenth of the amount of money it spends on infrastructure on human infrastructure (teachers), it will make a whole lot more sense.

“It is the people that would develop the resources. If we don’t do that, we are going to open the country to the multinationals and they would come here and mine your physical resources and bring in resources to develop these local resources without it fundamentally affecting the human capital,” he says.