The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) and the Colleges of Education Academic Staff Union (COEASU) have described as disturbing, the growing trend of converting public colleges of education to universities.
The Executive Secretary of TETFund, Arc. Sonny Echono who
spoke at a three-day national conference and workshop on Digital Pedagogy and
Fundable Research Proposal Writing organised by COEASU in collaboration with
the Committee of Provosts, said colleges of education were critical in
producing teachers at the basic education level
Echono who questioned the rationale behind it when existing
colleges of education were not producing enough teachers for primary schools in
the country, urged federal and state governments to prioritise education at the
basic level.
He said: “This penchant to want to convert colleges of
education to universities, frankly I see no need for it. Universities already
have faculties of education. And many of the conventional universities have
this already. Why don’t we produce enough for this basic level first? We can
have some level of specialisation because improvements come.
“And some of them already have that. But do we want to
convert all our colleges of education to universities when we are not producing
enough for our primary schools?
“And you know the concept of the pyramid. The highest number
of enrolments is at the primary level. Because people begin to drop out as they
move to higher levels.
“So that’s where we need the highest number of teachers. And
in countries that get it right, I can give examples of Germany and Japan. It is
the teachers at the basic level that earn more than the teachers even at the
tertiary level.”
President of COEASU, Dr Smart Olugbeko who described the
move as a misplaced priority on the part of the government, advised the
government to borrow a leaf from China where universities were being converted
to technical institutions.
“Doing that is at the peril of the basic level of education.
Because when we talk about colleges of education, they were established for the
purpose of catering for the basic level of education.
“This is the level of education that anybody who wants to be
literate will need to pass through. They are specially dedicated to training
people who will teach at this level.
“Therefore, if because our primary schools have collapsed as
a result of privatisation of primary schools at the detriment of public primary
schools, therefore government because most of them are elitist in their
thinking and orientation, what they believe is that tertiary education is all
about universities. And that is why they keep on converting colleges of
education to universities at the detriment of the system.
“In Lagos State today, there is no polytechnic, or college
of education at the level of the state. They have converted all of them to
universities and this will have dire consequences on the state because why
countries that are making waves in technology are converting their universities
to polytechnics, as was done in China, instead what we have in Nigeria is at
the reverse where we see our legislators sponsoring bills to convert colleges
of education to universities because they already have existing structures. To
us, this will have dire consequences on our education.”