thank you all right yo welcome back to the show um the topic this morning is 2023 International Day for education of course you know that every 24th of January uh it's the International Day for Education around the world this is a day that was chosen by the UN General Assembly to highlight the role of Education towards peace and development of course that's why we are here today to talk about that education how important it is and how veritable it too it is for development in any society my name
is chidinma orangwa and I have my colleague here with me this morning as a co-anchor actually Dubai good morning Angela how are you doing this morning I'm good I'm well with the resource persons we have here I'm sure to learn something today for those people that are education study please just get your pen and paper they say oh Lord you'll learn how important is education to you first human existence all depends on education the fact that we are seated here and somebody in zamfara or maybe Syr
ia alone is watching us it's all about education all right so that's where we are definitely going to be doing this okay okay let's uh introduce Our Guest this morning we have Dr Vera in kironment an educationist and Senior former and former senior lecturer in the department of Gardens and counseling faculty of Education in nam desire University okay you're welcome to the program thank you all right we also have with us professor in ktek Diego the professor in educational management and policy s
he is a former dean of Faculty of Education University you're welcome to the program thank you very much all right I'm talking about education and how important it is of course we said that the importance for development in any given Society now looking at Nigeria as a nation how would you place the education education when it comes to Nigeria the kind of priority that is being given when you also consider how much is being doed out for Education when we are done and we are talking about our bud
get for the year okay um in Nigeria first of all education is the key to development just like you rightly said and Nigeria is yet to be among the developed Nations and if you look at the way we price education in Nigeria you will quickly see the reason why we are not you know listed among the developed Nations because the education is key to success and development in every nation it is when you acquire knowledge and you put it into a practice and you one becomes con functional in the society w
ithout education and the functionality of the individual becomes has a question mark yeah okay um how can you rate education we're talking about Nigeria now how can you read education in anambra state bearing in mind the success anambra students have recorded in international competitions yeah thank you very much first of all I want to appreciate our governor Mr Charles professor Charles for the emphasis on education during the transition committee he made it very clear that education is his pri
ority and as soon as we came on board he recruited 5 000 teachers so before then you can see anambra students winning Awards on every everywhere even the best principal of the year the best administrator of the Year Nationwide is from anambra is the principle of Harvard girls and she was my student I supervised her PhD in unizik and she came first the whole Nigeria the best student of the year from anambra so you can see education and in education despite the lean resources available so you're s
aying that even when the federal government is calling shot in meeting educational standards in budget allocation yes it states within that same government is striving exactly that's what I mean you know the UNESCO requirement is 26 budgetary allocation should be given to education but in Nigeria they're not up to four percent they don't give us up to four percent in education but despite that in my state anambra you see the government trying to do what he can to make sure that we thrive in educ
ation that's why we're having so many so much successes put in primary secondary and tertiary education the challenges or the huddles that are being faced by educationists in the country all over not just our number because we have established that we are trying we are thriving in anambra State in Nigeria who could who are we going to lay the blames on is that the leaders the policy makers the stakeholders or the educationists themselves [Music] um does it mean that the education they are now pu
shing more the education is they are trying their best just like um my post said here the governor of anambra state is an educationist he's a teacher he's a teacher and that is why he is really pushing to take education in anambra state to a higher level more than what it used to be he wants to take it to another level where human capital develop human capital development will be productive and it will at home and it will be exportable abroad so the the stakeholders most of them are trying to se
e if uh our educational system will come to a certain standard but when you look at the funding the funding I think funding is the major problem we the priority the nation at the center is given to education is part of is is the most uh number one in the challenges facing uh education to thrive all over the nation that's what I can say we educationists we are trying and you can see what we are going we've been going through uh as far as pushing forward is concerned they askful members are owned
eight months salary yet they are in school they are trying to graduate students despite that they want to bring out uh quality in the system but maybe the leaders I don't know they are yet to see the importance of giving education a great priority I think that should be the responsibility to make our leaders understand the importance of education and secondly we're talking about our 5000 teachers being reported by another state at the Inception of this government uh please criteria for recruitme
nt thank you very much before we came on board I want to appreciate honorable Commission of Education she went through so many hurdles with this with these are our children they did the first exam they did the second exam they did the third exam and had an interview before she came out with 8 000 teachers who are qualified Governor asked us to select five thousand and we brought out the criteria forty percent merits cause subject 20 percent technical subject 10 percent local government 20 percen
t educational disadvantaged local government 10 percent so that's what we looked at when we are selecting the 5000. those who had very high marks were on the Merit list 90 70 80. they came under the Merit list and they will now looked at there are so many disadvantaged states those people are not because of the flood so we looked at them specifically we also looked at core subjects they call compulsory code like English language maths uh technical subjects and then civic education those who had
it and past they had a better option 55.5 percent was the cutoff and there are so many subjects we did not consider I at all even if you like half hundred percent because that are not teaching subjects they're not being taught in secondary school example is a business administration mass communication philosophy anthropology sociology and so many subjects like that subjects that are not being taught in Secondary School okay [Music] all right um thank you so much for giving us this criteria it's
quite important because I know a whole lot of people that have been complaining that they came and wrote the test and got very high math but at the end of the day they were not called for the employment so uh that answers the question why some people we are not actually shortlisted at the end of the day or are there other things that could actually be what maybe the factor that some people got came wrote and got very high marked but they weren't shortlisted and there are other things apart from
not not um having the Core teaching subject not studying quotes so there are still three thousand who passed who were not taking okay based on approval given to us okay that's a good one now um coming back to this today because you're a commemorating world education day and uh the the theme for this year is to invest in people and prioritize and education now looking at this recruitment of 5 000 teachers how can we delete it you see that they are kind of related invested in people let's talk abo
ut that yeah sure recruiting 5 000 teachers being the first thing the governor did when he got on board um is investing in people because if you want to get it right that a human capital development is very very important is when you develop people then you will now the people will now use what they've got to develop this Society so investing in people is one of the major reasons why the governor took that both steps of getting quality 5 000 teachers he he did it on marriage just like my profile
said he's on Merit we have we had criteria it is no longer I know somebody then you'll be employed no he came on board and said as a teacher as an educationist we must get it right at the basic education level and if we must get it right we must now the people takes that hard skills and techniques you know to impact the correct knowledge to the children and the pupils and the students who will now be pushed into the society to contribute their own quarter to the development of the of the states
and the Nigeria as a whole but he said everything had to do with married but um we were hearing feelers you understand as broadcasters that are they were people that didn't even have qualification that got the appointment you understand and they were still when you said you had 8 000 people that five thousand I don't know you understand the criteria you said you used but there are people that came and said they wrote the exam they met they cut off they had those qualifications and yet they were
not chosen and then some other people are saying that there are people that didn't even Merit been writing the exam and they got so how do you guys juxtapose this to you know allegations so to say I want to tell an ambrilliance that we did our best because there's there was something the governor told us he said that he wants anambra we are the son of nobody the job be unmarried because he met heritage he said in the olden days things were done on merits that he if I he pleaded with us that eve
n if he somebody comes and say that this is Governor's list that it is a lie we should not take anybody based on a list what of the poor children from poor homes who don't have anybody that was I told you about the a family that we in fact we caught so many people up who passed the exams and who did excellently well we called them to come and pick up their letters especially those in core subjects that we need like this computer science is also one of the areas we need he said when we see such a
marks we call the people we pursue them come and take some people to come and write the the exams did you actually specify that these are the subjects that you need to teach I want to tell you that we didn't meet that the commissioner of education did it before we came on board that process had already finished before we were employed so yours was just to speak yes you know so we didn't know the the processes okay so she suffered much because she passed through a lot of processes before she cam
e up with this so we came and the list was handed over to us two of all of three of us we chose the criteria together and then this criteria you chose was it by sampling the deficiencies in schools in anambra state yes according to need according to need we have teacher need they were asked to submit their needs and we posted this teachers based on on school needs you know so that's what we did invest in 5 000 teachers to train and we trade 5000 teachers can you maintain that class that's five t
housand so that other states wouldn't come up push them for the hard labor of you guys have done is there any uh yeah yeah so because you can push and some other person is willing to pay higher than what you're paying here and then you've trained and the person lives and goes elsewhere is there any reason or any criteria to make sure that this 5 000 that you guys are trained remain in anambra state I just want to tell you that already anambra state standard is very attractive do you know that da
y they came to take their letter we gave them 5 000 transport Governor proved that we should give them newly recruited five thousand naira for transport they resumed work around times of December and they were paid December salary they were also paid Chris bonus in December although their number is high there's no governor who can do it it's not easy within Nigeria nobody no Governor can try it we are coming for to for the first time and we give you five thousand to take transport then within tw
o 10 days or 12 days you get your alert then you get that ah no no this is supersonic no Governor can try it okay that's that's a good one now you made mention of um having 8 000 people that actually qualified but you were asked to pick only five thousand do you have any supplementary you know provision for those maybe to you know still bring them in because of course they made they made it to the the finance just that well unfortunately you have to pick up just 5 000 people the approval was fiv
e thousand so close to your life you will have hoping and believing that Interstate will increase and I'm not sure if it increases and Mr Governor being a very Humane and a teacher will I I believe he will do something but we will not guarantee it at the moment yeah because of the lean resources he has already done this uh despite the lean resources because he wants to invest in education in anambra state to get what he wants so talking about supplementary we have hope and anything that will com
e up it is those people that are in that list that will still will still fall back on them okay I heard the list is there is even in the air because we uploaded it everybody saw it so that's the one we can say on that supplementary okay and now another question I want to ask us just like he mentioned earlier uh these five thousand teachers are recruit that we are recruited now have they really been you know uh in the service like that if another Administration come they're not going to say no yo
u're being recruited by this particular atmosphere because we saw something that happened adeleke actually sucking about 1 500 teachers that were that we are recruited by his predecessor so are they now you know footed like they are not going anywhere they are teachers in anambra state at a Service Commission I want to say something many Governors don't risks when they come on board they wait until the last day they're leaving maybe last six months they will employ so that is the problem that ou
r governor this is his first year and he recruited five thousand and they will be on they will be on here for the next four years with him sure so they're not going anywhere again nobody will send them away and I want to tell you that many teachers are retiring DC we have about five five hundred and something teachers retiring going back from spear secondary school and I think it's applicable in Primary School sure so we're losing a lot of teachers you know so I don't think anybody any same pers
on will not like the system to collapse sure I want to add to that um just like she said when somebody has been in this system they they by the time the next Governor comes these people must have been confirmed their appointment must have been confirmed because it's normally two years your appointment is confirmed and once the appointment is confirmed that you you can't drive the person away and terminate the appointment so they are and they are taking away a large chunk to getting you it has ha
ppened even in Northern Nigeria we see these things we read them up in the papers you understand now you said 5000 came in newly trained you understand and now like 500 is going you understand so when you have 5 000 coming in you understand does that mean there was a cloth as in a loss in the education I mean in teachers recruitment in anambra state a huge number to bump into just primary intentions you know just primaries it was a large portion that was in that area yeah the ratio is one six th
at is what units could recommend yeah I think it's one to Thirty wanted before this recruitment you enter a class 72 students one teacher 90 students one teacher and the teacher we teach from A to Z to Z and you see teachers dying so it is we appreciate him and we want to these people that are crying in fact he has asked us to collect the names of those who passed very well in cause subjects so maybe after he may decide to approve it we don't know yet we know that something good postings what wh
at are the characters you used to push them in different schools or Villages and communities because I've had some people coming up to tell that the way they were posted they don't really like the police and I know that so we're their criterias for you to like push them to different schools criteria uh we posted them according to their local government areas and their towns in fact I think that started when we started teaching in 1988 I was living in onicha with my husband with one child and I w
as posted to know my girls Secondary School which is not even at the center of the town where you get to the center of the town you need to enter bike to go down to Nowhere girls and now I was going there for close to two years before I got a transfer to Anita so that has been the the system the criteria to post people in their different local governments and towns because I cannot come from a identity South for example and you go and post me to omo I am alone I will not know the terrain so the
idea is if you post that person there because the the the schools in The Villages are lucky teachers and the idea the aim of this employment is to fill the gaps and if we don't send teachers to those villages the aim is defeated so to get it right you now post people from that area they know how to go there the place will be friendly to them so that's the idea okay okay where you are born The Neighbors your brothers they know you if you decide to play Trancy we go to you go to your father foreig
n so it will help the system a lot you cannot cheat you cannot do so many things that are not right because the villagers know you and know your father know your grandfather says you know they will even bring you to town union meeting come and answer so that we decided to push them to their Villages well good enough we have um let's say government School Educators in our midst I don't know if you guys can pass this next question I'm about to add to the authorities the prolification of private sc
hools in government schools I don't understand is there nobody to check some of these private so-called private schools are nothing they are not they don't even have the standard as compared to the government but still prefer to take their kids to this unglorified secondary what do you think you guys can do in order to preach the Gap I went to Republic School but um my children are not in public school because I fear that they won't turn out well please what can you guys do to increase much more
attractive like the private schools thank you very much I want to tell you one of the reasons why people run away from public school is because we don't encourage cheating examination malpractice so [Music] a lot of cheating go on in these private schools so and in public school we don't allow that we put our feet down and say that they will not cheat so they run to that place then coming to talk about primary yeah that Sin Sin happens in primary in primary school there's some malpractice yes t
he parents who collaborate with the teachers the appropriators what they are interested is that this the children they are passing very well and they will mandate the teachers to help those children to pass in fact they follow them to come on entrance their Center and go there to tell them whatever so that maybe answers so that they will do very well they do all this my practice in private school because their main aim is to make money their main aim is not to uh to turn out you know quality a c
hildren quality pupils that are going into the secondary they are only interested in the money once the parents see that in this school they pass Community trans very well they will be sending their children to the school actually help but trust the point he was trying to make I mean it has been alleged that some teachers in the public schools that they don't really teach you it's not as if they are not qualified of course they are qualified but it has been alleged that some of them don't go to
school they don't go to classes they don't teach the kids very well and because we have large numbers of students most of the time in a classroom some don't even know their students or their purpose by name and that's the one of the issues some people have said that that because of that they are not going to take their children to public school that's number one now you've recruited five thousand kids so how do you ensure that this teacher is recruited especially those people that have been post
ed in riverine areas those had to reach areas how do you ensure that they go to school every day and fulfill their responsibilities and do their job very well thank you very much we have a vision team myself I am among the supervision team every morning from zones from local governments we move around the school and let me tell you the principles they know that if I come on the spot check and discover that teachers are not in the classroom of course the principal will be demoted what are you doi
ng why can't you so things are no longer the same they already know that things are happening so people are on their toes running up and down so if it were happening before it can it can happen in this Administration because already like you know some of them will come to us the place you posted us is too far is give me my love I give to you I've collected two people to people if you don't want to go give us letter we give to those who want to go something is applicable employment letter and put
others who are interested many people want to teach so it is no longer business as usual you either teach do the work for which you're employed or you or you forfeit your job and I know with this type of integrated supervision we are doing now they can't run away they can't they can't afford have afford to play with our children because these children are very important to us and already we saw what they are doing well before we came on board so what we want them to do very very well more so te
achers cannot do that rubbish this time thank you [Music] like they used to do in private school um honestly speaking I'll still want the situation whereby an ambarians people seeking political office will have will be proud to have their children in from their schools if the government is paying attention into building the future of a liberians through the primary schools the secondary schools has been a reason why we wouldn't be proud to that area so apart from teaching it's not just your lead
ing the Chinese people in order to be a good person or to be better for the society there are other areas you know do you guys have cancer law and stuff like that that guide children you understand and the use of library because most of the private schools have libraries when you go to public schools of all these facilities that encourages reading you understand you don't find it there this 5000 recruitment is that going to be funding that will back it up to give the children the necessary envir
onment in order to be great I would like a citizens for the future yeah we are on course um first for example I'm a guidance counselor by training by profession so when I got this appointment I said to myself Counseling in the primary school we have a new ship this time and we have already started we have already started because in the primary schools there are few or non counseling is is that not there or very skeletal skeletally done so but now we have put in place measures to make all the tea
chers the trade guidance and counseling to start practicing even though there are because they will give the the reason that many there are no teachers and you are talking about guidance counselor to stay and be counseling the students so even if there are less teachers these trained counselors will be giving their services they will be giving their services and we on that we are about to carry out career convention we are children will be exposed to different careers this time we are concentrat
ing on things they will do with their hands like getting a shoe cobbler getting a a a a a dressmaker and you know using hand to construct things that you know that will be used so that when these children even when they graduate as primary school at primary school if they can't even go to secondary school they can be knitting clothes or doing something that will give them money that's been happening in go in the in in the olden days so that is where we are going and that is what our governor wan
ts to achieve he wants a you know to Pro to produce students or pupils that will come out and be relevant and fend for themselves no matter how the level of basic education from which they are coming from so we are on course we are doing that what yes yes there's something that there's something else I want to add there's this thing that Governor has introduced already PP Public public private private Community participation publish private Community participation in in education that's ppcc ppc
c okay participation a public private Community participation okay it means Community allowed to come into education to participate individuals are allowed there's a name model okay yes yes building infrastructures building infrastructures building schools giving scholarship bringing facilities even coming around to talk to the children so it is now on course and many individuals who are rich who want to they're coming in to participate so I'm so sure that with time this because we have probably
a problem of facilities infrastructure dilapidation growth dilapidation in the system so with these people coming in they will help the government and our schools will be better all right um let's go for a Street walk because uh we have people that we interviewed on the street uh concerning the topic we're exploring this morning and let's hear what they have to say [Music] well first of all I want to thank the governor for employing these teachers to including the teaching students to five thou
sand where the expectation from these teachers is that they are supposed to do their work as suppose the parents are expecting them to put in their best so that the children they foreign government employed about five thousand over 5000 teachers into the school system the anambra people expect the education system to be standard now Laguna of teachers teaching various subjects so in the education system we will see more of a standard teaching techniques because most of those people employed are
experienced and somehow and most of them are also qualified to be in the educational sector we are expecting them to be professional in the approach to make sure that everything that the anambra state governments the reason why they were employed that they make sure that the equities should also be willing to put another make sure that at the end and anambra state that has a home with benefit from employment [Music] personalities because of a lot of teaching teachers so now I'll put you have mor
e efforts um foreign see how far that way with a normal literature I got about five people because we were to be the normal qualification but the food but you know [Music] attention yeah so um [Music] foreign [Music] work where people are talking about the importance of Education in commemoration of the International Education day and we're with our guest in the studio please what do you want to add to what we just said or if there's any other thing you want to contribute before we round up the
show okay was there any case of um bribery in this your recruitment process um your 5000 recruitment 8 000 recruitment selection and stuff like that yeah thank you very much I will always appreciate our governor again because the recruitment is Merit based but you know we are in Nigeria that any opportunity that comes around some people would like to use it to better themselves so we heard about the bribery there are some people taking bribe and giving some people appointment letters um we thank
God we we found out and we took up the case we went to the law enforcement agency we went to the police and we Logic on the the complaints and the case is still on we discovered that the individual was collecting 40 000. from candidates would be teachers who maybe didn't pass or were not shortlisted we are collecting 40 000. at first we had this in a ppsspc then later somebody came to ask about to tell me that and gave us the phone number and the account number where the money was being paid so
we we went and launched the complaint I started following up it's still on because you know in Nigeria police matter today we paid some money and we are still following it up we discovered that the account was opened in owerri uh we've gotten the name of the person but we need to block the account okay okay okay okay okay so but the case is still only a case that was collecting money for people education um person is not okay but we don't know whether at the end of the day it will be linked lan
guage okay so the investigation is still on right now okay and we get to hear at the end of the day what's the outcome but the truth is that it's not from us okay it's not from us because they said they were collecting for the chairman oh for the chairman yeah so it is not from us and that is the more reason we will follow it and none of all those people that paid into the account none of them were recruited um they will not be recruited because their names are not singing that's what we want to
establish no you were not okay all right well we want to say a very big thank you to both of you thank you so much Dr Vera and Kieran watino before joining us on the show this morning thank you thank you very much and also to you Professor nktekg well thank you so much for being here thank you very much well that's it of the show uh we want to say a very big thank you to you for being part of the show thank you to our state Governor for the recruitment of 5 000 teachers thank you Indiana Umbra
thank you all stakeholders because we know that all of you because from what we have said here we all put our hands together to see how we can make the educational sector in anambra state greater not just great but greater my name is [Music] foreign [Music]
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