students do their best educationally with challenging materials in an environment that supports learning and authentic accomplishment. 4. The standards for admission to teacher education programmes be raised and that prospective teachers demonstrate aptitude for teaching and competence in an academic discipline. 5. Teachers’ salaries should be raised but that increases be based on effective evaluation of performance. 6. The Federal Government should be as a stimulator and encourager of education and as a disseminator of information education and as a source of federal funding. 7. Teacher preparation programmes should be improved by modifying the present programmes used by schools for education. 8. The conditions for learning should be improved by employing more teachers, reducing class size and improving the quality of educational materials. 9. Talented teachers should be attracted and retained by “competitive entry-level salaries” and “rewards for competence” and do not “selectively raise the pay for a few teachers at the expense of many”. 10. The traditional role of teachers should be transformed by including them “in decision-making about teaching and learning and reduce their non-instructional tasks. 11. Constructive and comprehensive teacher evaluation system should be established or existing ones should be modified to be constructive and comprehensive. 12. The Federal Government should fund the creation of more opportunities for professional growth and development designed by professional educators. 13. The Federal Government should approve funds to improve teacher education programmes according to standards that teachers “believe are basic to success in the classroom”. 14. The Federal Government should assign higher budget priority to educational improvement and make certain that existing resources are used more effectively and efficiently, to improve educational quality. 15. The Federal Government should fund boards of education to provide “quality assurance in education” by establishing objective systems to measure and reward teacher effectiveness and performance. While quality assurance evaluation should reward effective teachers, it should also lead to the dismissal of those judged ineffective. CONCLUSION Although an agreement was later signed in October, 2009 between the Federal Government and ASUU after ASUU suspended its three-month strike that began in June and ended October 2009, it should still be clearly understood by the Federal Government that ASUU reserves the right to still make more demands in future if situations require. Just like Thomas Jefferson once said: “for republican institutions to function progressively, they had to be continually modified”. The Federal Government should understand that for Nigerian Education to make potent impact on the lives of the citizens and the international community, it must be continually modified because the present tools, instructional materials, laboratories, libraries, classrooms and other things associated with education that are in use now may be required to be modified in the next two or five years including conditions of service. It is as a result of the continuous modifications of American Education that has made American higher institutions most of the best in the world and the institutions have contributed to the greatness of America as well. Although the Federal Government is to blame for the poor education in Nigerian institutions, most ASUU members and most Nigerian Educators have also failed to play their fundamental roles effectively. ASUU should also try as much as possible to carryout their fundamental roles effectively in their institutions: 1. Lecturers should lecture students according to the lecture time table and even organise tutorials if need be. 2. Lecturers should be friendly with students during and after lectures because being unnecessarily hard on students and making them to suffer academically can affect the mental development of students and retard their academic achievements. 3. Lecturers should not collect money from students to give them the grades they didn’t merit. This has also contributed to the high level of incompetent graduates. 4. Lecturers should not transfer their aggression with other people on their students. 5. Lecturers should motivate their students to achieve academically by rewarding exceptionally brilliant students for their superior performance. 6. Lecturers should instill discipline in students and curb unruly passions and make academics more interesting. If the federal government, ASUU and other Nigerian Educators will work in harmony and be more patriotic to Nigeria, Nigerian institutions and students will be competitive internationally and more productive and these will also help Nigeria to grow economically in areas that require the knowledge obtained from Nigerian institutions of learning. Industrialization can only be sustained if quality education is put in place because the skills and knowledge needed in industries can only be obtained if certain facilities and skilled personnel are put in place. It is my sincere desire as a patriotic Nigerian that the Federal Government should do all it takes to propel Nigeria from dark ages to golden ages by modernizing our institutions of learning, improving the condition of living of the citizenry, managing the available resources more effectively and those in charge of project funds should stop siphoning them but use them for the purposes which they were budgeted for. God bless Nigeria.
Posted on: Tue, 08 Oct 2013 09:30:01 +0000
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