President Muhammadu Buhari recently signed into law the bill extending the retirement age and service years of teachers from 60 years to 65 years and 35 to 40 years, respectively. The executive bill was pursuant to Section 58(2) of the 1999 Constitution as amended but was presented to the National Assembly after the Federal Executive Council (FEC) gave its approval on January 20, 2021.

This latest policy leaning of the Federal Government as regards the welfare of public secondary and primary school teachers could best be described as benign malignancy. It looks good on the surface, especially to the unwary, but is in reality most heartless, retarding, and a disservice to the country and its youths.

The government has not told us the exact truth. It is not just enough to say allowing teachers to stay longer in the profession was a step in the right direction. Describing this delusional decision thus shows that the government itself lacks a sense of direction.

One is not really surprised because of the geriatric inclinations of those in authority and their avowed determination to perpetuate the lordship of the ancients over the greater mass of Nigerians in virtually all spheres of life.

Though some argue that the idea would lead to the continued use of experienced and skilled teachers, we would be deceiving ourselves if we believed that the additional five years would bring about the magic these so-called skilled teachers could not produce in their 60 years in service. Even at that, would the 65 years not come some day and the trumpeted experience still be lost?

Not too long ago, we saw the skill and experience of teachers in Edo State where a teacher could not read before then-Governor Adams Oshiomhole. Some described the disgraceful display as stage fright, which it was not but in itself confirms the question mark on the teacher’s competence. Why would someone given the opportunity to showcase her expertise suffer stage fright; what was she afraid of?

In Kaduna State and some other places, the government has been having running battles with teachers over competence tests.

As a matter of fact, the government should be bold to order such tests for all teachers and send home those who prefer selling egusi and crayfish in schools instead of imparting the knowledge expected of them to pupils. They should no longer remain and continue to pollute the school system.

Of course, this piece is clearly pro-teachers and must not be interpreted otherwise. It is aimed at salvaging their tattered reputation and bring healing to their soul. The system is diseased to its very bones and this cannot be cured by merely extending teachers’ service years and thereby extending the misery and rot in our public schools.

What the government is calling skill and experience is mere certification, which more often than not has been proven to be spurious. How did the teachers get the certificates when they cannot read kindergarten literature? Why are they afraid of competence tests and regular assessments?

Have we asked why the teachers do not send their own children to public schools if they are that skilled and experienced? Is it not an irony that they would rather put their children and wards under the tutelage of the ‘half-baked and unprofessional’ teachers in private schools?

Some years ago, I brought my niece from the village to stay with me. She was in primary four in the public school at home but after personally testing her, I enrolled her in primary two in a private school where my child was. I did not know that the school even further demoted her to primary one until her result came. To my shock, she even failed. Is this the experience public schools boast of; who put my niece in primary four when she could not even read?

Critics easily dismiss private schools, claiming they lack quality teachers. Whatever that means, it has been proven that they are better run and produce better results than public schools.

However, there are indeed many skilled and professional teachers in our public schools. The problem is that the preponderance of the bad ones is overwhelming. But instead of the government to weed out the chaff for the wheat to breathe, they inadvertently want to continue the subjugation of the school system to wonky skills and professionalism.

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If you want to put them to put their competence to the test, they rebel and declare strike action. Why would one be afraid to showcase his skill? 

Unfortunately, this piece is on teachers but should actually be all-encompassing because the level of decay in our society has made every certificate on display at all levels of our national life suspect.

Like I noted in this column last week, we are witnesses to how northerners, who have manipulated the school system to enjoy all manner of concessions, including gaining admission to schools with shamefully skewed cutoff marks suddenly become lords in the public service over much more academically superior southerners.

This hollowness manifested in the disgraceful disclosures of those who lead us, how most of them now claim loss of the very academic credentials that put them in command positions, now even swearing perjurious affidavits over such certifications because of obvious consequences of detailed scrutiny.

The dimwitted argument that the teachers are skilled and experienced falls is not only mischievous but also misleading. Honestly, it would be proper if the government made a total sweep of the teachers and start on a new slate so that foundation education in Nigeria becomes what it should.

Anyway, the major headache is that many of these teachers are in service with doctored age declarations. Some are already in their 60s and 70s and should have long retired. One needs to take a trip around public schools to see the infirm ‘skilled and experienced’ to confirm this.  Giving them extra years is to perpetuate a fraud that is more like a death sentence not only to the school system but also to the teachers, who are obviously endangering their lives because of money.

Is it not strange that in a country where millions of youths are unemployed, the government would rather keep their tired old parents in service to continue bearing the burden of feeding the children that should now be taking care of them?

Yes, it is reverse administration that in this technology age, instead of recruiting update teachers, the government wants to solve the shortage of personnel by retaining tired limbs and dead woods, most of whom lack the necessary ICT skills for a digital classroom, in the schools they supposedly want to improve its quality. Sometimes, it is difficult to comprehend how Nigeria came by the policymakers that churn out these weird theories.

The survival of a country rests on the basic education its citizens receive. Considering what is going on all around us, it is easily discernible that we have not sown the right seeds. That is why Nigeria is prostrate and waddling at this age.

Recently, some teachers in Rivers State cried out to the state governor over unpaid six years’ salary areas. For a government that has employed 200,000 political jobbers as aides, costing the state billions of naira, this shabby treatment of teachers is inexplicably very odd and callous. Also, I don’t know if the ghost workers in Imo State have become human or have remained ghosts while still alive simply because the government does not want to pay them.

So, in order to bridge the gap in the teacher-student ratio, the government must recruit new teachers, and pay them well and on time too. That is the greater motivation, not age extension because even an old man that is owed salaries can never deliver the goods

Nevertheless, whether tertiary, secondary, or primary school teachers, extending the retirement age is a policy in reverse, especially when there is unemployed fresh blood fit for the job.

Anyone can carry out sample tests in the locality and confirm that we don’t need to prolong the kind of pain inflicted on foundation education by our ‘experienced and skilled teachers. Let them go and rest in peace.

If for any reason, the retirement age of an exceptional few must be done at all, let it be optional and those that opt-in must be subjected to thorough medical examination, including MRI tests to ascertain their true age.