Sudden Disaster Befallen South West Education: My Take

By Wale Bolorunduro
Many reasons have been adduced to the poor performances of the south west States in the recent West Africa Examination Council results. Other regions especially South East States have been performing very well in term of absolute performance and the number of University enrollable students, which have led some people to come up with lame duck excuse that other states have been doing it in “Nigeria way” and that there is nothing else that can be done Honourable without breaking the Yoruba ethos.

Dr Wale Bolorunduro

The following are my observations for us “to reason” together rather than laboring to think:
1) We no longer have Teacher Training Colleges, which cater for basic education with curricula on minimum ten (10) subjects.
2) We admit Secondary School leavers into College of Education, which only train them in three subjects and we employ them to teach ten (10) subjects in the primary/elementary schools.
3) The teachers from College of Educations would have to teach the ten (10) subjects they learned ten years earlier in the primary schools.
4) Irrespective of whether they are stale or lacking in the temperament, methodology and orientation, they are compelled to teach these fundamental subjects in the primary schools.
5) Therefore, their products, primary school leavers are shoved through higher classes and end up being dysfunctional.
It is in this light that I am reasoning that a College of Education with modules that will effectively capture the essence of the teacher training education will solve this problem. I know many of the schools lack teachers but what is the essence of filling positions with dysfunctional teachers.
I am calling on well meaning Yorubas to support proper training of teachers and/or retraining of existing teachers, knowing fully well that government cannot do everything because of process and budgetary constraints.
On my own, I am partnering with Colleges of Education, which have agreed to provide the needful as articulated above by providing scholarships to the applicants in Ife-Ijesa zone, who will be studying to become functional teachers in these colleges.
There is Kinsey College of Education, which is partnering with us.