Editorial
Allowance for education students
Federal Government’s planned bursary payment to higher education students every semester is a welcome development, more
so that it is coming at a time the nation’s higher institutions of learning are running short of young men and women who show interest in education as a course.
The youths no longer show interest in education as a profession because the condition of service of Nigerian teachers is one of the worst in the world.
In Nigeria, it is a shame and a stigma for anybody to introduce himself/herself as a teacher in a social gathering of any kind. Even Nigerian women are not keen in getting hooked with teachers for marriage.
Young women who received tokens from their spouses return it to them on discovering that their partners are teachers,
because with them the future looks blurred and unpromising.
In the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) conducted by
the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), very few candidates apply for education. The faculties of education in Nigerian universities are traditionally fed by candidates rejected from the
more attractive medicine, engineering, law, accounting and the like.
Recently, Federal Government has ruled that all education students are to receive allowance every semester of their schooling. Colleges of education students who are pursuing Nigeria Certificate in
Education (NCE) are to get N50,000, while their counterparts in universities are to receive N70,000.
This is a welcome development as this will spur young intelligent Nigerians who have no sponsors to higher school, to further their education in education sector.
How do we blame Nigeria’s average families for not encouraging their
children and wards to do education in the universities and colleges? How many Nigerian politicians and policy makers send their children .and wards to study education in the universities in Europe or America
or Asia? Or even at home?
Federal Government should make sure the allowances for higher education
students as proposed are paid before each
semester commences. If this is done, great brains would be attracted to education sector, good for Nigeria to attain her technological aspirations.