Lack of Qualified and Motivated Biology Teachers
The success of any educational
problem depends on the caliber of teachers. Lack of qualified and motivated
biology teachers is a major impediment militating against the effective
teaching of biology. The quality of a teacher determines to a large extent the
students level of understanding, it is pertinent to know that the quality of a
teacher is the most important educational input predicting students
achievement.
Ajeyalemi (1990), opined that the
students poor performance and lack of interest in science, particularly biology
is as a result of lack of qualified and motivated biology teachers. If teachers
from any other field are mandated to teach biology in schools, in such cases,
then due to the abstract nature of biology the learners will not be able to
benefit maximally from the lesson because the teacher is not professionally
trained in the mandated field of study. Owing to the need for scientists and
their accelerated influx in other sectors, teaching is generally seen as unlucrative
profession,
compared with other learned professions – such as medicine, law, engineering, and architecture and so some teachers are dissatisfied and even depressed about their professional standing. They feel that the work load is too heavy, and the recognition and appreciation are too limited and as such the few available qualified biology teachers are not motivated, resulting from poor human resources policies, there is a net deficiency of capable hands to sciences and biology in particularly in secondary schools.
compared with other learned professions – such as medicine, law, engineering, and architecture and so some teachers are dissatisfied and even depressed about their professional standing. They feel that the work load is too heavy, and the recognition and appreciation are too limited and as such the few available qualified biology teachers are not motivated, resulting from poor human resources policies, there is a net deficiency of capable hands to sciences and biology in particularly in secondary schools.
Again, the demand for teaching
biology has been upgraded since there are new areas that are being explored day
by day. So, the quality of biology teachers is a guest for intelligence and an
up-to date fitness in the subject, plus the ability and will to teach, only a
few of biology teachers meet this demand, where as the rest vast majority are
not qualified. In the same vain a good number of biology teachers are not
conversant with modern gadgets and information technology nor acquainted with
the recent advancements that computer and other sophisticated gadgets avail
biology. This automatically excludes many biology teachers from the confidence
list of 21st century biology education for their lack of skills and
latest applications of the principles of biology.
Imoh (2006) observed that lack of qualified
teachers oblige some schools to engage the services of non-qualified persons to
handle the skill intensive subject. This leaves the subject and the learners at
the mercies of weaklings, who might claim to be the best even when they lack
basic understanding of the subject, its philosophy and teaching.
Ukeje (1995) held that it is a
national suicide for any nation to have its best brains as engineers,
physicians, lawyers while its poorest brains teach its youths. He concluded
that the cumulative effect is national crisis and non-development. This is
exactly what is happening in our secondary schools today, the brains that are
able to teach are not motivated to teach, where as those that are contented to
teach are not qualified to teach.
In most of our secondary schools, the
few available biology teachers and those who are able and willing to teach are
overloaded with work which cumminates in diminishing returns and in many cases
monopoly and undue exploitation of helpless knowledge seekers. This is why we
hear of extra-moral classes, special practical classes, exam runs, special
centres and their likes. These teachers having no one to checkmate their works,
end up in many instance teaching their own ideas which is a shift from the
provisions of the curriculum.
It is one thing to be able to teach,
and another thing to be willing or motivated to do so. Teaching a delicate
subject like biology require both qualification and motivation (in form of
sponsorship to seminars, conferences, science fairs, courses and time –to time
appraisal and promotion with an enhanced salary packages, enabling working
environment and conditions, provisions of teaching facilities, infrastructure,
interesting human resources policies, incentive, retirement/disengagement
packages and job security)
Agunyegon (1980) noted that there
exist relationship between teachers’ qualification and students performance.
This points to the fact that the quality of a teachers’ teaching determines to
a large extent the students’ level of understanding, therefore it is clear that
teacher quality is the most important educational input predicting students’ achievement.
It is a known fact that qualified, skillful biologist and biology educationist
are not engaged to teach because they are not adequately mobilized or
motivated, where as mere job seekers who are not fit to do the job but are
cheaper to engage are hired especially in private schools. This makes a mess of
the education system and the teaching and advancement of biology in particular
in Nigerian Secondary Schools.
Every other agency, ministry,
parastatals and government itself depends on the strength of education to
function effectively in this country yet, the policy makers, politicians and
stakeholders who are sitting on the circle of the wealth of this country, even
though they are not as productive as teachers often make quick reference to the
economic depression we are facing as their inability for not making adequate
provision for the education sector and not motivating teachers to teach. The
teachers, though professionals are constantly neglected as we see in their
ridiculous salary scheme to start with.
This neglect is only a display of how
myopic our leaders are about the root of the said economic depression, the disdain
with which education and educationist have been treated over years. In reprisal
attack against the nation for the protracted neglect of schools and teachers,
our educational institutions now break our youths who in turn break the
society, instead of building youths who would have built out nation.
The concern here is not to appropriate guilt on either
government or teachers, nor to discern who is culpable, but to profer solutions
to the mess we are already caught up in, biology teachers who are knowledgeable
in the subject and are skillful to teach it, deserve attractive pay cheques and
other fringe benefits to keep working, where as others who are misfit in the
teaching field should pick up careers in other works of life. This country will
fail when education fails and only rise when education rises.
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