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'Politicians hire our teachers'
Continued from here
http://enlightenmemore.blogspot.com/2015/02/can-this-be-truly-called-schooling-or.html
Expressing worry, the school principal told our correspondent that he sometimes receives calls from politicians telling him not to ‘disturb’ some particular teachers because they are working for them on other duties.
He said, “Politicians are not helping matters. In a situation where politicians call me to say a particular teacher is working with them, knowing well that the
teacher is fully employed, what do I do?
“It would have been better if they would rather tell us that they are no longer teachers so that we can forget about having them in the system, but that is not the case.”
An Abuja-based political analyst, Mr. Teniola Ayodeji, suggested such action could have been connected to the fact that President Goodluck Jonathan hails from the state and there would be lots of political activities there.
He said, “Elections are here again, remember, and it’s the President’s home. But if politicians are engaging teachers and calling the principal not to disturb them, then there is a big problem in this part of the world.
“It’s the President’s home and the state of education is perhaps expected to be far better than this. If the ‘President’s children’ are suffering like this, I wonder
what is happening to children in some other remote communities in the country.”
Ayodeji suggested that if politicians are hiring teachers for assignments that pay better than teaching, it is possible militants also hire young boys for their violent campaign.
He said, “It happened in the pre-amnesty era when militants from the state recruited young boys into their fold.
“They need young men to do that. All they need is to lure them with money and this can make some of the male students quit schooling.”
Teachers demand better welfare
Though the principal didn’t disclose the salary packages of his teachers, he said they were well paid, being one of the richest states in the country.
Meanwhile, two of the four schoolteachers who were around, said they had good reasons for not teaching regularly.
One of them, who pleaded anonymity, said it was cumbersome travelling on water from the state capital Yenagoa where he resides to the community to teach because of the risks involved.
He also said if the government could construct a road that links the community with Yenagoa, “life would be
better for us and the students.”
He said, “It is not easy travelling on speedboats everyday to teach. If there is good road, movement to and fro and teaching these students would be easier.
“Look at the students also; they don’t have the privilege of going for excursions outside this community. They only go to the farm or the river to swim after school.
Many of them have not seen cars before. They only see canoes and boats.” Another teacher, who pleaded anonymity, said he lives in Yenagoa because of the presence of better social amenities in the city.
He said, “My family lives in the city and I don’t think it will be easy abandoning them to stay in a place where there are poor infrastructure. There is no good water source here, no light, no road, and many others.
“Many times also, we don’t always get boats on time to travel here to come and teach, so we return home. These are the challenges.”
Youth corps members take charge
Almost all the students said they were most times taught by NYSC
members posted to the school. They said if that was not the case, probably no learning would be taking place. Victor said, “We need more corpers (youth corps members) to teach us.
“Our teachers come once in a while because they travel a lot, but the corpers are always around. They are
permanent. As one set goes, another comes in. They are our friends.”
The situation has, however, led to some of the youth corps members complaining of fatigue and some illnesses.
One of them, Matthew Awoga, a Mechanical Engineering graduate, said he usually experiencesvstress and sometimes develops headache because he alone teaches Mathematics from JSS 1 to SS 3 and Introductory Technology from JSS 1 to JSS 3.
Waving a cane at the JSS 3 students as they were making noise, he complained, “If you saw me when I just resumed in this school, I was a fat person, but now
I’m lean. Teaching has drained my blood. It’s not easy.
“The teachers don’t teach them, they leave the job to us. I pity the students sometimes because I know they don’t get quality education. We are only trying our best as we are not professional teachers.
“Many of them only come around when they have issues with their salary payment, otherwise, you won’t see them.”
While he spoke with our correspondent, the school principal and a teacher, whom Awoga described as a ‘ghost,’ emerged from the principal’s residence, a stone’s throw from the school.
The teacher had just arrived from Yenagoa to inform the principal, that he would not be available in the school for more than two days in a week as he was
‘busy’ doing some other things outside the state.
Our correspondent overheard their conversation before they switched to vernacular.
Companions with wild animals
Because of the swampy nature of the school environment (and the community generally), due to the fact that it’s a riverine area, We learnt from the students and the youth corps members that
wild reptiles, especially snakes, are occasional ‘visitors’ in the school premises.
Vincent Christian, a JSS 3 student, was bothered. He said, “There are wild animals here. We kill snakes and scorpions because they sometimes lurk around the school environment.
“Many times when we are cutting grasses or playing in the field, we see them and kill. We see big snakes at times close to the window.”
Toilets, food vendors, miles away from school
premises
Another reason why most students in the school don’t learn for more than two hours in a day is because there are no toilets in its premises. In addition, because there are no food vendors in the school premises, some go out and never return for the day.
“We go back to our houses, riverside or bushes if we want to defecate because we don’t have toilet in the school premises,” Godspower Blessing said. “Some of us also go home to eat and don’t return, especially if
there are no teachers around.”
The school principal, Sofoni, confirmed it is true. He commented, “We are trying everything possible to stop the loitering of students but there are certain factors that are militating against the measures.
“In a big school like this, we have no toilets. So when a student walks up to any teacher or me that they are going to ease themselves, we cannot stop them.
In disguise of going to ease themselves, some of them never return to the class.
“They spend the remaining school period in the town or even if they return, they come very late.
Lack of toilet facilities is a big problem here. “Also, for those living at the far end of the community, by 11:30am when the school is on lunch break, they go home and never return for the day.
“You can’t stop them from visiting their parents to have lunch. By the time they trek that distance, even if they want to come back, it is already around 2pm when school closes.”
Poor infrastructure, impediment to learning
Non-availability of teachers is not the only problem; the students complained that they lacked facilities that could facilitate their learning.
The weather was cold due to harmattan when our correspondent visited, and this made the students to shiver – another reason why the students said they wouldn’t be able to learn well even if teachers were around to teach them.
In almost all the classrooms, there are broken windows and ceilings such that if rain falls, it leaks through the ceiling and this also makes the students shiver.
Apart from broken windows, seats and ceilings in the school, the students said they had no laboratories to do practicals and no library to study while their
teachers are away.
A JSS 3 student, Clarky Igburu, 15, said, “We have broken ceilings, no windows, no doors, the harmattan is affecting our us. The cold is affecting us, we cannot
learn well.”
Christian also said, “The environment is not good for us; most of us don’t want to come and study because we feel cold and the environment is not good for us."
We need better classrooms
Not having enough and well-furnished classrooms, laboratories and library also contribute to the reason why the students don’t spend more time learning.
For instance, all the SS 2 students were combined in one classroom and so when a teacher walks into the class to teach, the ones who don’t offer the subject leave the classroom – to an empty one, most times making noise there.
Due to idleness, some leave the school premises and go home.
“We can just walk home if we feel there is nothing to learn again for the day, that is why we go home early even when we come late,” one of the students,
Moses
Ayibakari, said he would have loved going to the library to study each time he leaves the class for subjects that he doesn’t offer, but there is none.
He added, “There’s no library. For us science students, we don’t have laboratories to do practicals.
“We learn computer education in the textbook, but we have not seen any in this school. We learned that the
world now is a global village, but we don’t have computers in this school.
“We want to be part of the global civilisation. I also learnt that the forthcoming Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination will be computer-based, but
we don’t have knowledge of how it works.”
For Sofoni Ebimo, Thankgod Godgift, Firstman Woyinkuro, Doralby Sekibo and some others who said they wanted to become computer scientists, non -availability of the equipment may hinder their ambitions.
“I want the government to come to our aid. I also want to learn how to use the computer because I want to be a pilot, flying planes,” Favour Gumugumu said.
A JSS 3 student, Ebibonimighe Gumugumu, 13, also
said, “We need library. The one we have is not normal. There are no books in there. We also need a computer lab, light and sports facilities.”
Blessing Godspower, of JSS 2 class, confirmed what Ebibonimighe said, “There are no textbooks in the
library.
“We have not learnt anything today because there are no teachers to teach us. We don’t know many of them.
Some of them are not coming. I want them to be coming so we can learn many things.”
Ebikeme Igburu, 16, also said “We lack facilities in this school. I want to become a medical doctor, but I don’t have a practical understanding of science subjects. We want computers and electricity.”
The principal, Sofoni, is worried.
He said, “Now, WASSCE is making it compulsory for students to write computer study, civic education and
some entrepreneurial subjects, where are the computers?
“Even if we have them now, can they learn how to use them to write the exam between now and April (2015)?
These are some of our challenges.”
On the electricity issue, We found out that
the community doesn’t have electricity and so all the residents depend on the community generator which is
switched on at 6pm every day for about six hours – at the time when many of the residents would have gone to bed and the students would not be in school.
Poor academic performance
Talking about passing examinations, this seems to be the least challenge for some of the students – because writing seems to be the greater one, as our correspondent earlier found out.
Despite the fact that the state was rated 4th in performance in the 2013/2014 academic year by the West African Examinations Council, an educationist, Mr. Tariowei Abule, said the rating does not depict the true situation of things.
He said, “Don’t forget that growth is different from development. It’s just like Nigeria having the largest economy in the world, but still having low development.
“Passing examinations does not mean real learning is taking place. There are ways results can be manipulated. The process is the real deal, which cannot
be manipulated.
“Many of them pass the exams, but cannot further their education or cope at the tertiary level because they got their O’Level certificates through malpractice.
They cannot prove what they have.”
Also, when another educationist, who lives in Yenagoa, Mrs. Amaebi Owei-Tongu, learnt about the plight of the
students, she said there was no way they would learn well.
“These situations will adversely affect their overall performance and I don’t know how they would be able to pass examinations,” she said.
Baffled how they could then be able to write and pass national examinations, our correspondent asked a youth corps member.
He explained that some of the teachers and his colleagues ‘help’ the students during such times.
For the ‘help’ – a word used for ‘malpractice’ – the latter pay for it by cash, though. A former student of the school, an undergraduate of the Niger Delta State University, Amasomma, Bayelsa State, who pleaded anonymity, said, “We also paid for the
help we received during our time.
“I am not happy saying this, but that was the situation we found ourselves in. It’s the way they could compensate us for not teaching us well. They assisted
us by writing answers for us and allowing us to take textbooks into exam halls.”
‘We need help’ Sofoni admitted there was little he could do to restore the old glory of the 50-year-old school whose motto is
“Show the light.”
Rather than being in light, he admitted the students are ‘living in darkness.’ He said, “In a school environment, what should be paramount is the teaching aid.
We don’t have enough classrooms; the ones we have are not furnished with
good seats. Many of them are in bad shape. The conduciveness is not there for them.
“Then in a big school like this, teachers should be accommodated to reduce their travelling on water expenses. Some have to travel back to Yenagoa where
they reside by 2pm every day, so hardly do you find them anytime after that. They would have sped off.
“Also, look at my office (looks cramped, untidy and not conducive). Who can believe a cubicle like this is a principal’s office?”
He also blamed the students partly for their woes. He added, “The students are also to blame for their poor performance.
I was a student here in the late
1970s and then we used to read a lot. We did study in the night.
“We were always reading and competing among ourselves, but students of this school nowadays don’t do that. They love staying idle and not taking initiative.
They are not too serious about learning.”
On not being “serious about learning,” one of the teachers said there are a few students from JSS 3 to SSS 3 classes who have children that they look after.
Pointing at one of the female students in SSS 2 who is 16, he said, “She has a two-year-old child and always sleeps in class.”
The young girl was ashamed to talk afterwards. However, Sofoni said the situation could change if the government would help.
He said, “There are politicians, senators, and House of Representative members from this community, but once they go out there, they forget about us.
“If not, we would have road and other facilities. If the government comes to our aid, some of these problems will be resolved and there will be better learning for these children.”
Courtesy: www.punchng.com
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