Ill-teacher training: A cancer to Africa's school systems

By Abubakar Obilan

It is exceedingly true to opine that no educational system can rise above the quality of its teachers.

The role of teachers therefore, in sustainable development cannot be quantified, especially in training personnel to develop a strong cognitive faculty in all facets of workforce.

Precisely, whatever affects a teacher trainee during college training be it positive or negative, absolutely affects the quality of their prospective learners; future doctors, lawyers, politicians etc hence, since nobody can punch beyond his reach; a teacher cannot produce beyond his quality.

Invariably, being the heart and key source of knowledge, skills, wisdom, appropriate orientations and inspiration for students, a teacher is central in facilitating the process to meaningful education and pupils' learning outcomes; hence, education means a Teacher.

Teacher's effectiveness is dependent on teacher training activities; in terms of personality, pedagogical, intercultural and psychological competencies offered to him.

Historically, ever since William Byngham organized Teaching Practice (TP) in 1439, the exercise was qualified by teacher training colleges around the world as a catalyst to professional preparation of neophyte teachers in a bid to ameliorate the quality of teaching.

Africa's education systems also incorporated TP in the professional teaching curriculum in their bid to produce the best of teacher quality. Unlike, Zimbabwe, many countries including Uganda grade TP. albeit the duration and period for the exercise vary. Example: Nigeria, South Africa, Zambia, Tanzania and Uganda conduct the exercise twice and for 6-12 weeks each session, Rwanda; it is a block TP of 8 months done only once.  Ghana and Kenya, a whole academic school term conducted twice - I find this to be more desirable for the professional training.

Personal experience in assessment of the exercise across Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya and Rwanda, shows that Rwanda is at the helm in actualizing the apprentice model of TP assessment (undertaken by college supervisors and host teachers) compared to neighboring countries. In Rwanda host school contributes 60% of TP total grade. If properly managed, this approach is more appropriately meaningful to teacher trainees.  This model is worth standardizing for all private and public teacher training institutions not across EAC.

What constitutes a clog in TP assessment wheel of progress is; flimsy  scope of assessment, gluttonous behavior of institutions to over delay facilitation of assessors or under pay them, Poor communication network, employment of honorary assessors, unprofessionalism, workload, shortage of teaching facilities, time,  etc.    

Under such circumstances, assessors are tempted to extort fare from teacher trainees or abandon the exercise, poor attitude towards the exercise due to absence of motivation, under assessment of candidates sometimes examining TP files only. At times, host schools just have to call the training institutions demanding for assessment of their abandoned trainees.

Most importantly, we need to revisit our TP assessment tools; to capture candidate's sociability, responsiveness, constancy, adaptability, resourcefulness, innovativeness and other epistemological skills beyond classroom instruction. TP trainees should run well supervised parallel administration supported by school administrators to expose trainees to practical problem solving skills and let candidates be assessed even during test invigilation.

The best performing education systems in the world such as Singapore and Finland, gigantically invest in teacher education. TP in Finland has weight of 33% of the teacher education curriculum and changed from block TP to internship. In the region, the highest weighs approximately 6.6% which means the training is predominantly done theoretically. Honestly, the best place to learn to swim is in the swimming pool; you have to do it again and again not to be told how to do it again and again, so should be teacher training.  

The writer is from BUKEDEA in Teso sub-region