The Second National Teachers' Summit was held from April 20th - 22nd at the NTI Conference Centre, Kaduna with the theme Teacher Recruitment, Retention and Professional Development. The Opening Ceremony was performed by the Hon. Minister for Education, Prof. Fabian Osuji. The Hon. Minister of State for Education, Hajja Bintu Ibrahim Musa graced the Closing Ceremony. The Summit attracted scholars and dignitaries from across the country.

Three distinguished educators and educationist were honoured with Fellow Teacher's Institute (FTI). The recipients of the award are Prof. Gajaraj Dhanarajan, out-going President of Commonwealth of Learning (COL), Vancouver, Canada, Mallam Hafiz S. Wali, pioneer Director and Chief Executive of the Institute, Prof. Adamu Baikie, an outing educationist, teacher educator and educational administrator.

For the citation on the Award recipients click on these names: Prof. Gajaraj Dhanarajan; Mallam Hafiz S. Wali, Prof. Adamu Baikie


Second National Summit Communiqué

PREAMBLE
The National Teachers' Institute, Kaduna hosted the Second National Teachers' Summit on 20th - 22nd April 2004.
The Summit which was chaired by the Honourable Minister of Education, Professor Fabian Osuji, was declared open by the Executive Governor of Kaduna State, Alhaji Ahmed Mohammed Makarfi, ably represented by the Honourable Commissioner for Education for Kaduna State, Dr. Baba Usman. 
The theme of the Second Summit was "TEACHER RECRUITMENT, RETENTION AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT". The theme was premised on the desire of the National Teachers' Institute to sensitise all levels of government, stakeholders and the general public on the need to formulate and implement appropriate policies that will restore the glory of the teaching profession and engender greater retention.
The participants were seasoned teacher educators and educational administrators from Universities, Colleges of Education, UNESCO-Abuja, serving and retired teachers, federal and state Ministries of Education and their parastatals. Also present were other stakeholders in Education from within and outside the country.
The Summit noted, with satisfaction, the efforts of the Federal and some State Governments towards improving the general conditions of teachers and in particular the proposal to establish a National Teachers Service Corps scheme.

OBSERVATIONS
The following observations emerged from the papers and discussions:

A. Teacher Recruitment
1. Although the prescribed minimum teaching qualification is the Nigeria Certificate in Education (NCE), the Summit observed that this has not been achievable in many states for many reasons peculiar to each state.
2. Teacher inter and intra state mobility are far below expectation as a result of several constraints, especially geographical and political.
3. The teaching profession has remained unattractive as a result of a myriad of factors.
4. In spite of the existing shortfalls in the number of teachers, it was observed that states have demonstrated an unwillingness to recruit qualified teachers to fill existing vacancies. 

B. Teacher Retention
1. The Summit noted with dismay the high attrition rate of teachers due mainly to unattractive conditions of service.
2. The working environment in which teachers find themselves is not conducive.
3. The poor treatment of pensioners reduces the capacity of the system to retain teachers and worsens current attrition rates.

C. Teacher Professional Development
1. The provisions of the National Policy on Education on professional development of teachers are not being implemented and are mere declarations of intent with little or weak political will and enforcement capacity to implement these provisions.
2. There is a serious neglect of In-service training for serving teachers, resulting in slow professional growth.
3. There are very serious inadequacies in the teacher education curricula in terms of relevance of content and skills development.
4. Inadequate quality control mechanism due to gross under-funding of Quality Assurance institutions/agencies.

Recommendations
On the strength of the above observations, the Summit recommends as follows:
1. A uniform and standardized teacher recruitment policy in consonance with the Teachers 
Registration Council (TRC) Act No. 31 of 1993 and the provisions of the National Policy on Education should be designed and implemented by the various tiers of government.

2. More teachers should be employed to fill the existing vacancies especially in the rural areas in order to cope with the increasing students/pupils enrolment in schools.

3. There should be an improvement in the general conditions of service for teachers with reference to motivational factors such as regular payment of salaries, allowances, promotions and recognition of serving and retired teachers for national awards.

4. Government should set a deadline for implementing the Teachers Salary Scale (TSS), to avoid the present high rate of attrition where the teaching profession is seen as a stepping stone to more lucrative jobs in other sectors of the economy.

5. Efforts should be made by governments at all levels to make the teachers' working environment teacher friendly and conducive to teaching and learning.

6. There should be a well-defined retirement/pension policy which will address the problems of non-payment of retired teachers' pension and gratuity.

7. Teacher Resource Centres should be established in each Local Government Area of the Federation.

8. The relevant government agencies should address as a matter of urgency the observed deficiencies in teacher education curricula at all levels.

9. Monitoring and inspection networks at all levels should be strengthened to engender better quality control mechanisms in both public and private schools.

10. Inspection reports should be faithfully implemented by relevant agencies.

11. School-based professional teacher development programmes should be institutionalized, especially at the basic education level, through collaboration, support and mentoring.

12. The state governments should take over the payment of primary school teachers' salary to address the inadequacies in the present arrangements, particularly irregular payment and non-payment of teachers' salary.

13. Contract appointment where it is given should be by mutual agreement 
between the employer and the employee.

Click to Show Photo Album on Summit