By PANLE VWAR
As the world marks Teachers’ Day, there is every reason to celebrate the men and women who have devoted themselves to educating the next generation. Teachers remain among the most important agents of social transformation, yet there is an uncomfortable question we must ask: are we adequately preparing teachers for the generation they are expected to teach?
The classroom has changed dramatically, with the child of today having access to smartphones, the internet, social media, artificial intelligence and other digital tools that were either unavailable or unfamiliar to many of today’s teachers when they were growing up. This has created a growing digital gap between the teacher and the learner.
It is not unusual to find a child who knows more about operating a smartphone than his or her teacher. Sharing his experience, a friend once told me that his son knows much more about his phone than he does. That might sound amusing, but it illustrates a reality that is becoming increasingly common. Some teachers, particularly in rural communities, still use basic button phones.
For some, this is not because they reject technology, but because their incomes do not allow them to acquire smartphones, computers or other digital devices that could enhance their teaching. A teacher cannot effectively teach what he or she was never adequately taught.
Many teachers went through their own education in an era when computer laboratories were rare or nonexistent. They learnt with chalkboards, textbooks, notebooks and typewriters. But today, they are expected to teach children who can search for information online within seconds.
The problem, therefore, goes beyond providing computers to schools. The teacher must also be equipped with the knowledge and confidence to use them effectively.
Although seminars and workshops on digital education are organised in some places, attending a workshop does not necessarily translate into practical competence. A teacher may listen to lectures on digital learning, receive a certificate and return to the classroom without knowing how to effectively integrate technology into everyday teaching.
There is also the question of Nigeria’s traditional emphasis on paper qualifications. Possessing a Bachelor’s degree in Education, for example, does not automatically mean that a teacher is digitally literate.
It is possible to have a professionally qualified teacher who struggles with a computer-based test, while the students he or she teaches can navigate computers and smartphones with relative ease. Some students acquire these skills from home, friends, private tutors or business centres where they have access to computers and the internet.
The situation becomes even more challenging as academic assessment increasingly moves online. Some participants in part-time university programmes, including teachers, have struggled with computer-based examinations and online submissions. In some cases, candidates who understand the subject matter may still have difficulty completing tasks within the allotted time because they are not sufficiently familiar with the technology.
This raises an important question: how can we expect teachers to guide students through the digital world when some of the teachers themselves are still struggling to find their way through it? There is another problem that deserves attention: academic integrity. A digitally inexperienced teacher may find it difficult to distinguish between an assignment in which a student has genuinely researched a subject, understood the material and added his or her own ideas, and one that has simply been copied and pasted from the internet.
The solution is not to blame teachers or reject technology. Rather, it is to bridge the gap. Teachers need continuous training and retraining in digital literacy, and such training should go beyond theory. Teachers should be given practical opportunities to use computers, educational applications, online research tools, digital assessment platforms and emerging technologies relevant to teaching.
Government has a role to play. But schools and private education providers also have a responsibility. Kudos should go to schools that provide computers or other digital devices to teachers at subsidised rates, as such initiatives can make a significant difference. But the question remains: how many schools are doing this?
With the increasing digitalisation of education, teacher welfare and remuneration must also receive greater attention. It is difficult to expect a poorly remunerated teacher to regularly purchase expensive smartphones, computers and internet data from personal income.
Government ministries and education authorities should therefore organise, coordinate and supervise regular digital-learning workshops for teachers. More importantly, participation should not end with attendance certificates. There should be follow-up, monitoring and practical assessment to determine whether the knowledge acquired is actually being implemented in classrooms. Teachers could also be supported through grants, soft loans or subsidised computer schemes to enable them to acquire laptops and other essential digital tools. Such measures would help ensure that digital inclusion extends beyond students to the people responsible for teaching them.
The introduction of digital-learning initiatives for students must therefore go hand in hand with investment in teachers. You cannot digitalise the learner while leaving the teacher behind. As teachers are celebrated on October 5 every year, they should be seen not merely as people who deliver lessons, but as agents of change and reservoirs of knowledge. They are expected to shape the minds that will build tomorrow’s society.
But to perform that role effectively in the 21st century, they too must be given the opportunity to learn, adapt and grow. The digital child needs a digitally equipped teacher.
For teachers who still have a phobia of digitalisation, the time is now to come out of their shells and face the reality of an era in which children are growing up surrounded by technology. There must be a deliberate and urgent effort to develop their skills and improve their overall performance.
The future of education should, therefore, not be about replacing the teacher with technology, but about empowering the teacher with technology.