The federal government will soon make bachelor’s degree the minimum qualification to be required of anyone who wants to teach in the country.
This was disclosed yesterday by Nigeria’s Minister of Education, Malam Ibrahim Shekarau, when Finnish Ambassador to Nigeria, Pirjo Suomela-Chowdhury, paid him a courtesy visit in his office in Abuja.
He spoke in reaction to his guest’s disclosure that all teachers in Finland had a minimum of master’s degree and that teaching is a highly competitive profession in his country as a result of huge interest by too many qualified people.
Shekarau noted that the federal government would explore all measures to restore the respect, dignity and status of teachers in the country, stressing that the target of the Federal Government was to make first degree a minimum teaching qualification. He noted that since 1980, the minimum teaching qualification to teach in schools was National Certificate in Education, NCE.
Assuring that this could be upped to first degree in time to come, the Minister disclosed that there were a number of graduates currently teaching in primary schools in the country.
Recalling how the country was able to get over the practice in the past where primary school leavers were engaged to teach, he said: “The level was raised to Teacher Grade 3 in the 60s, and later on in early 70s, it was minimum of Grade 2, and this was later phased out in the early 80s to a minimum of NCE.
“Gradually we will get there. We hope that a day will come when all our schools including pre-primary will be handled by university graduates.
“The rate at which our universities are increasing shows that in time to come that will be our target. We have a lot to learn from each other regardless of the factor of the size. The challenges are the same.”
The Minister stressed that his particular concern as Minister of Education was to improve on the quality of teachers as it is a major factor towards qualitative education in the country.
“We must continuously increase the number of teachers, improve the quality of teachers, improve the condition of teacher training institutions and continuously review the curriculum of teacher education to make sure it catches up with the challenges, address issues of teachers’ welfare and job security,” he said.