One of a
number of heart-rending videos making the rounds on whatsapp is that of a teacher
who recorded himself pleading with school proprietors and the public to save teachers
from starvation. With open tears and no attempt at any gentlemanly composure,
he talks about how months without salary has created unimaginable hardships for
himself and many other families involved in the current prolonged school closure. He cuts a picture of a crusader who
is sacrificing his self-image on behalf of countless of otherwise decent
professionals who are totally disillusioned by a generally bad situation that
seemed to have singled out their sector for extra pounding!
Again, driving home sometime last week, I saw
a young man with a conspicuous banner directed at motorists: Private
Teachers Available, with a couple of telephone numbers listed. Which sane
parent would entrust his child to a complete stranger he picked up on the road,
in these days of the pandemic? The teachers’ present desperation is that bizarre. There
are families where both parents earn their living in this same sector!
It’s
strange, but it looks like the picture of beggarly teachers probably sits well
with those in government. Could this be
because those currently in power are dominated by the old generation who had
assimilated the belief that teachers’ reward is in heaven? In their days, the society needed to engrave
that consoling, blissful-hereafter picture in the minds of teachers because
nothing around them promised any comfort in service. At any gathering of the family
whenever financial contributions were being discussed, the teacher always knew his/her place was at the back.
In recent
years however, that picture has changed almost full circle, courtesy of some
audacious private school owners who have taken school administration to heights
hitherto unheard of, giving parents who would have otherwise looked ashore for
qualitative education a choice here at home. The challenge posed by the ever-increasing
standards in private schools have even woken up the governments to the replacing
of many dilapidated, unsightly structures of public schools to more beautiful buildings
among other changes.
As for
teachers, they now have a voice and can hold their own in the society. Like the
once rejected cornerstone that ultimately became the strength of the building,
they are now the pride of their extended families, rising to the occasion
anytime their financial input was needed. The car park of most private schools boasts
of all kinds of cars belonging to the staff, a picture that was once the
preserve of bankers and workers in oil and gas!
But of what
use is the teachers’ tearful appeal to their employers at a time such as this? To whom should the proprietor extend her own plea,
seeing that she is worse hit than her despondent teachers in the present circumstance.
As against a general perception that makes them often a subject of envy, most proprietors are in the business of education primarily for the passion of impacting lives and contributing to nation building, making sacrifices beyond what is discernible
from their awe-inspiring infrastructures.
In many instances, the huge investment sunk in several massive schools
would yield far better returns with less headaches were the owners concerned only
with financial returns on investment. For many of them, there are no alternative
business outside the schools. Truth is, few people can combine the highly
demanding operations of a school with another enterprise and still succeed in
taking that institution to any significant heights.
Now, the questions
are why do schools still remain closed till date, and worst, why is the
situation so frustratingly confusing that no one can say for sure when the
closure would end? Commendable as the concern on the safety of our children is,
it’s confounding that party primaries are holding now as we speak, in numbers
far more than you will find in several schools put together, with scant regard
for the virus the rowdy participants might be returning to
their various homes with!
Safeguarding
our children’s health is important, yet we must not create more problems for
their future by leaving their education in such obvious, almost irreversible disarray?
Or how else do we explain the fate of the present (or shall we call it last set
of) JSS 3 students? How do you solve the issues of promotion of many students to
the next classes when two whole terms of a particular session were inconclusive?
Is it not deceptive to rely on the so-called online
classes that we all know could never have adequately taken the place of proper
in-school learning.?
Twelve long
years ago, my wife and I visited some schools in South Africa. At St. John’s
School Johannesburg we met primary school pupils, 8-9 year olds who were constructing
websites as part of a class assignment, without any visible stress! Now, if pupils
in those climes were to stay at home for a year on solely online classes, not much would be lost because they have the tools and the learning history to support
it.
This is Nigeria and we must be realistic enough to admit this is a new
awakening for us. It will take sometime yet for the online learning to be perfected. For now, there is hardly any school that can boast
of full compliance by all its students, not with the confusing intrusion of government
announcement which told parents they had a choice of participation and of payment.
Do the
opinions of the key stakeholders matter at all by the way? If it does, how many
times since the lockdown has the government engaged the proprietors, parents,
teachers and the rest of us in a sustained cross communication, using all medium to get those directly affected in voicing the way forward? A la NNDC, for those who like to enrich
themselves from the misfortune of fellow citizens, we hope we would not hear in the
future that some hundreds of billions were used this season by those
representing government for publicity, and that palliatives were distributed to hundreds of thousands
of schools as assisted salaries to millions of private school teachers!
Please let
the schools open and leave each parent to decide if and when to return his child
to school. There would be no Armageddon!. All that is required is a convincing
readiness in every school in terms of temperature check, hand washing
facilities, spacing of pupils in the classrooms and perhaps an amendment of school hours. Unlike what obtains in public schools, proprietors are their own watchdogs. The fear of scandals and image-damaging
incidents is enough to keep every proprietor on perpetual health watch. Government should
handle its own part by urgently creating the same atmosphere as best as it can in public
schools without having to hold the rest of the nation to ransom in endless
waiting!
