Nigeria Union of Teachers, NUT, has condemned the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board, JAMB, policy that places 180 as cut-off marks for students seeking admission into Universities and 150 for those seeking admission into Polytechnics and Colleges of Education.
NUT explained that the policy is targeted at demeaning and lowering the professional status of teachers with its concomitant negative effect on the attainment of quality education in the country.
The General Secretary of the union, Obong Obong, in a statement issued by the union, described the policy as derogatory, and highly discriminatory.
He said, “It is of great disservice to the education sector where the best brains and students of distinction are placed in other courses while those with lower grades are pushed into teaching.
“In most advanced and developed countries, it is considered that a teacher’s ability to disseminate knowledge to students is dependent on his sound intellectual capability.
“It is the government who deliberately source for people with lower educational standard to become teachers and then still to turn around and blame them for poor delivery.”
“However,” he continued, “the NUT has in abundance very brilliant and effective teachers currently in service who should be nurtured for effective service delivery. We wish to warn that the teaching profession must not be made an all comers affair.”
He went further to warn that “if this policy is allowed to stand, government should be ready to account for the resultant short comings that may be observed in our educational institutions in future from those teachers”.
The union therefore called for an immediate reversal of the policy, adding that government must ensure that only students of distinction are admitted to be trained as teachers in all educational institutions in the county.
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