Dearth of qualified English, Maths teachers hit Lagos schools

THE  National Union of Teachers, NUT Lagos State, has raised an alarm over shortage of qualified English language and Mathematics teachers in state owned secondary schools.

The chairman of the NUT  in the state, Mr. Adesegun Raheem speaking to Vanguard in an exclusive interview said that 98 percent of the schools in the state do not have qualified English language and Mathematics teachers.

Raheem said; “When you visit our secondary schools today,  you will find an English teacher taking the students in Literature-in-English which should not be.”
He noted that this was the reason why larger percent of students in the state pass other subjects and fail English language and Mathematics that are more important than others.

According to him, “The statistics is very clear about this. We have extreme shortage of English and mathematics teachers in Lagos secondary schools.   For English, the tradition was that at least, three teachers should be assigned to a class in this subject.

“The qualified English teachers are over laboured. And most schools where they have large population of students, you find one English teacher handling this subject for several classes. “When English and mathematics teachers exit from service, rather than the state government replacing them by the subject teachers, as the principals demanded, all they do is to recruit people who are not competent to handle these important subjects.

“For mathematics, everyone knows that two plus two equals four but the way to convey the information to the student is very important. And this is better handled by an expert in the subject than someone who does not have the skill,” Raheem added

On Ebola Virus disease
Following the postponement of resumption date for Lagos State schools to October 8, this year, the chairman said “We have set up two monitoring teams to ensure the delivery of the Ebola Virus Disease, EVD, preventive kits to the schools. Each of the team comprises 11 member s of the union. And from the exercise, some schools have received the kits, while some still await theirs.

“We have sent the number of the schools to the agency managing the distribution of the kits, so that our pupils can commence academic work immediately on October 8.  We have adviced the state government on how best to resolve  areas where we identified challenges.

We will cover the days lost to Ebola break
Raheem put the number of school days lost  to Ebola holiday at just nine days, saying; ‘’When one looks at the school calendar, there are areas left for unforeseen contingencies. The first and last week are set aside for issues like this. There are also free periods on the timetable which could be used to cover lost time.

“And between 2:00 pm and 3:30pm, the government has set aside the time to encourage reading culture among the pupils. These are areas where the teachers can  cover the days lost.

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