QUALITY TEACHERS, GREAT NATION. By Dotun George.

The caption of this write up is a slogan I got at the matriculation ceremony of National Teacher’s Institute, Ogun state Office I was invited to. My assignment during the ceremony was to give a goodwill address (message) and to wish the matriculating students well.
Immediately I heard the slogan “Quality teachers, great nation”, in my characteristics manner and approach to issue of life, I began to ponder on what the slogan connote. I have come to understand that, what makes a great nation from generations to generations is the quality of the teachers produced by that nation. If a nation has unproductive, lazy, mentally retarded, and unqualified teachers, they will definitely produce students after their kind. That is the law of genesis and life. Who and what made great empires the world have seen all through ages? Great, qualitative, innovative, creative and productive minds in there produce great empires and great nations.

When I was growing up in life, as a little boys, all I know about teaching profession and teachers generally are known to be men and women who are disciplined, people who knows what they want and how to goes for it and get it, people of high moral and ethical standard, people of high integrity, they are honourable  and model to the younger generations. In every community, pre and post-independence, whenever they need someone to represent a community both in government and all other national or societal duties, there is no other place to look into, than the teachers within the community and sometime, they look in the direction of the clergymen. That was then and now reverse is the case. That does not mean, everyone in that profession has fallen short of the standard but the system and structure in our polity had wreak havoc for this noble profession.

I believe that you can’t give what you don’t have, therefore, people who ought to opt for teaching profession are the best and the brightest in our clime and not those who have lost all hope of going to tertiary institution or the rejected ones. If you understand the connotation behind the cutoff mark, then you will agree with me that, what they are driving at is that, Colleges of Education are for those who could not make it to universities and polytechnic.

If Nigeria will ever regain her lost glory, if we will be able to preserve the legacy and good heritage of our ancestors and build a nation that we can all be proud of, then we need to as a matter of urgency, begin to invest much in the teachers this country turns out every year. At the nursery and primary schools, we must ensure our best teachers are there to lay a solid foundation for the future we are all yearning for. A nation who looks down on its teachers, who fails to invest in them and fails to recognize their noble job, such nation is a disaster going somewhere to happen. To produce great nation, we need qualities teacher. We must begin to train and retrain the current one to meet up and cope with the challenges of the 21st century.