‘Nigeria needs 20 years to end teachers shortage’

National Commission for Colleges of Education said in Lagos on Wednesday that it would take the country 20 years to produce the 1.3 million teachers required to bridge existing shortfall at basic education level.

According to the News Agency of Nigeria, Executive Secretary of the commission, Prof. Muhammed Junaid, said this while delivering the 35th pre-convocation lecture at the Federal College of Education (Technical), Akoka, Lagos.

According to Junaid, the challenge forced the commission to design policies to address the issue.

He said, “In 2009, the Federal Ministry of Education’s roadmap to transformation reported that a total of 969,078 teachers would be needed for the early childhood and care education sub sector and 338,147 others for the primary education sub sector.

“The report further said that a total of 12,329 teachers would also be needed for the nomadic education sub-sector and 581 others for the junior secondary education sub- sector.

“This brings the total of overall teacher shortage at the basic education level to 1,320,135, across the country.”

Junaid said with the various colleges’ current production capacity of 64,000 teachers per annum, it would take Nigeria 20 years to bridge the gap.

To address the problem, the executive secretary said the commission would introduce specialised teacher education programme beginning from the 2012/2013 academic session.

Junaid said, “It is expected that all the colleges of education including the FCE, Akoka, will key into the new programme as spelt out in the revised minimum standard document.”