Comrade Titus Okotie is the current chairman of the Delta State Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) and first to serve the union for two terms. He speaks to MODUPE GEORGE about his re-election, state of education in his state, probable solutions to education challenges in Delta State. Excerpts…
What is the state of education and teaching profession in Delta State?
We will continue to appeal to the state government to recruit more teachers so that the job will be more comfortable for those who are still in the system. Effort should be made to retain them and to also attract new and more competent hands. It is high time we introduced a rural allowance or a salary scale that will take care of those who may be going to rural areas to teach. Teaching should be given a different salary scale as it has been proposed. Effort should be accelerated to bring that to bear so that we can retain more teachers and competent hands for that matter. When that is done, the government will no longer be the one to supervise, rather we will do the supervision ourselves to ensure that ‘to whom, much is given, much is expected.’ When you are satisfied with the job you are doing, you think about the job day in and day out, you won’t think of any other thing. We really need to look at different ways to motivate the teachers to empower them to add value to society through effective teaching. Considering the economic situation in the country, presently, we cannot disapprove the fact that the income can no longer take the teaching staff throughout the month. For instance, take a look at the price of fuel, which has snow-balled the increase of every other commodity, while the salary has remained stagnant. Whereas, if you are to practise your profession as you ought to as a teacher, you must not think of any other business. The reason is that you must always prepare your lesson notes after school for the next day as you do some markings. At the end of the day, you won’t have time for any other thing. If any of your children should gain admission into a higher institution, either a College of Education or university, the school fees are there to be sorted with from your meagre salary. Even so, the FG is of the view that the children of teachers who gain admission into either a Federal College of Education or university should not pay tuition fees. The question is how many federal colleges of education or universities do we have in the country that can cater for that? That is the proposal, but it has not been implemented. These are ways through which the society can reduce the burden of teachers or attract more hands into the system. I want the state government to look into these issues passionately because unless we take the necessary action, they are all going to pose a problem in the future.
What are the efforts your union is making to hold the government accountable on the issue of shortage of teachers in the state?
The last recruitment exercise was in 2009, when almost 10,000 teachers retired from the service. The job is more challenging by the day because the number of learners teachers now cope with compared to the right standard of the practice is at variance. We have over 478 secondary schools in Delta State, and presently over 9000 teachers have retired. The last time recruitment was carried out, only 1, 500 teachers were employed to replace the 9,000, which are grossly inadequate. The figure is just like a drop in the ocean. Even the governor is aware of that and having been confronted with the danger this poses for our education system in the state, he made us understand that part of what is restraining him from recruiting more hands was that he wouldn’t want to owe any of his workers, including teachers, any kobo.
What number are you looking at exactly?
Anything less than 6000 teachers will still be inadequate. We need a minimum of 6000 teachers to make up for the gap in the secondary arm alone. Meanwhile, the situation is grave at the primary arm. In some primary schools we have only three teachers in the whole school and you wonder how they are coping, it is that bad. We are aware that the allocation to the local governments has been very bad lately, but we hope that things will get better. The governor has directed every local government to recruit more teachers, but as of now, no visible attempt has been made. Now that the elections are over I am going to remind the officers of the directives again, they like to be prompted sometimes. I am sure if we compare notes it is almost the same in every state, but I learnt that Lagos State seems to be recruiting and Oyo State also recruited recently.
About a year ago when a commissioner for primary education was appointed and we were looking for a solution to the shortage of teachers in primary school, one of the issues I addressed was about retaining teachers who are degree holders in primary school. What the policy recommends as a minimum qualification for teaching is NCE. On the hand, if that is all you’ve got as a teacher, you will be limited in terms of promotion no matter the number of years you spend in service. So, everybody wants to get to the peak; they go for their university degrees. Hence, my argument is that with such qualifications, they should be moved to the junior schools, while the NCE holders are allowed to remain at the primary level.
You are the first NUT chairman to be re-elected into office in the state, what did you do differently?
I wouldn’t have become an NUT state chairman without being a teacher, and I thank God that I put in all my best during the time that I was teaching in the classroom. As a passionate teacher you grow and get to a stage where you become an administrator. I always ensure that I put in my best into whatever I’ve got to do in life, as much as my name is attached to it. I did not make any plan for a re-election until some members of the union came to me from different local governments to say, “Look, great things like these have not happened before in the teaching profession in the state, we just want you to continue with what you are doing.” I told them that I wouldn’t want anything that would bring confusion into the union, but they insisted and prevailed over me. On the day of the election, it was only one person who came out to challenge me. At the end of the day, my people gave me 490 votes and my opponent 10 votes, this was an indication that they meant what they said.
What were these things that you did?
I never told my teachers a lie over any issue and I would always let them know exactly how things are. One of the efforts was about how we stepped in at the point the issue of minimum wage wanted to escalate to a problem in my state, especially with teachers who are being paid by the local governments. There are no issues with the secondary arm of education because the salary is being paid by the state government. In Delta State there is a dichotomy as to who pays the salaries of different categories of levels. The secondary is being paid by the state government, and primary school by the LGs, whereas it is the state government that employs everyone. By the help of God Almighty, the way and manner through which we approached and managed the matter without any crisis marveled my teachers. The state had to come to the aid of the LGs to eventually pay the N30,0000 minimum wage. Another one is about harmonsing teacher’s years of service. I’m glad to tell you that Delta State is the 12th state to have actualised that after the bill was signed into law by President Muhammadu Buhari on the 8th of April 2022. We quickly put our house in order and approached the head of service, following the necessary protocols, the governor of the state, Ifeanyi Okowa graciously approved the memo and it became a law on February, 15 2023. Moreover, I always charge my teachers to do their job well, either as members of the executives or not. I made them to see reasons they should serve as role models and that really endeared me to many principals and heads of schools among them. I didn’t condone any form of laxity even from any members of the executives. I believe that they are teachers and their primary duties should not suffer simply because they are members of the executive council.
It appears teachers are not part of policy making on educational matters in your state?
Before the elections, we requested from the candidates who came to us for support to keenly look into the problems facing the teaching profession, upon assumption of office. We said they must ensure that teachers are part of decision making on education-related matters and when they constitute their committees, teachers must be on board to represent interest of teachers and the teaching profession generally so that we can give them thorough advice based on field experiences instead of theories. We are hoping that the incoming government will take the advice. Government should look inward and devise a means of retaining the available teachers and recruiting more to make the job comfortable for the existing ones.
It seems teachers have completely lost control as regards maintaining discipline in schools these days, what is the situation like in your state?
Let me illustrate with the school where I’m heading presently; the population of the school in 2000 was less than 500 and we had 28 teachers. Then, we were able to manage the students effectively, but currently the population of the students is 994 and we have less than 18 teachers including myself. With that kind of ration, how do you expect teachers to effectively maintain discipline?
If anything must change in this regard, other stakeholders must join hands in stemming the gross indiscipline among the students in schools today. Sometimes we go out of our way to involve the communities, asking the vigilantes to patrol the school in order to ensure that teachers are not beaten up. At any slight incidence, you will see the students taking out revenge on teachers who had attempted to affect a discipline or correction. That is the society we are in right now. So, the job is getting more challenging.
Aside from the fact that the parents too must complement the efforts of the school, another key remedy to that is that the government should give more attention to the welfare of teachers. When that is done I’m sure, it will be worth taking the risk of going the extra mile to affect discipline. Everyone seemed to be concerned about delivering the lessons and looking away from other things, pretending they are not there. The multiplier effect is what you are seeing today. Discipline is part of education otherwise; these are the kind of results we will be getting.
No educational system can grow above the level of its teachers, what effort is your union making to improve the capacity of teachers in the state?
We have always encouraged the government to train and retrain teachers. Though, within the limit of our resources as a union, we also carry out training; we train some selected few who will go back to train others. At the leadership level of the union, we have a study circle where we organise training in relation to our fields of studies. The main concern of the department is to ensure the training and retraining of teachers on new innovations and techniques of teaching. More so, we are lucky to have the Professional Teacher Development Centre in Delta State, which caters for the training of teachers on senatorial basis. We are proud of what the centre is doing, it is really a welcome development, we only want to ask the government to encourage the centre to do more; it’s really good for our education system.
