Incessant strikes inimical to teachers’ recruitment, says Provost

The nation’s tertiary institutions are currently on strike.

The Provost, Federal College of Education, FCE, Technical, Akoka, Lagos, Sijubunmi Olusanya, on Friday urged stakeholders in the education sector to intervene and proffer solutions to the incessant strikes in the country if the falling standard of education was to improve.

Mr. Olusanya who was speaking at the 35th pre-convocation lecture of the school said that the problem of incessant strikes was worsening the current challenge posed by shortfall of teachers required to teach at the basic level of education in the country.

He noted that strikes were not the best approach to resolve issues, and advised that dialogue should be adopted.

“I feel the issue of strike should be checked in our education system if we have any intention of meeting our developmental goals,” he said. “You know that the education sector is the key to any country’s growth and development, and this sector cannot be complete without the contribution of the teachers.”

“If this sector is faced with incessant strikes, no matter at what level, then it would further dampen the morale of those who want to take teaching as a profession. The issue of meeting our target in producing teachers for our basic level of education in the country might simply remain a mirage.”

The provost said effort must be made to ensure that the teaching profession was taken seriously in order to catch up with the rest of the world, pointing out that if there were to be strikes in the Colleges of Education in the country for too long, it would generally affect the output of teachers.

He said that such development might not be too good for a country that desired rapid transformation and national development, as well as the realisation of the Vision 20:2020.

The Executive Secretary of the National Commission for Colleges of Education, NCCE, Muhammed Junaid, said the Federal Government had projected in 2012 that it would take a minimum of about two decades to produce about 1.3 million teachers needed in public primary schools in Nigeria.

With the incessant strike and attendant lack of adequate manpower in the education sector, the provost said the target could be difficult to meet. He added that there was an urgent need for stakeholders to come together and resolve all issues capable of adversely affecting the sector.

(NAN)