The Tertiary Education Trust Fund, TETFUND and the Colleges of Education Academic Staff Union, COEASU, have kicked against the growing trend of converting public colleges of education to universities. This was made known by the Executive Secretary of TETFund, Sonny Echono and President of COEASU, Dr Smart Olugbeko, during a three-day national conference and workshop on Digital Pedagogy and Fundable Research Proposal Writing organised by COEASU in Abuja.
They decried the development while highlighting the important role colleges of education play in producing teachers at the basic education level for the country.
Echono, who expressed dismay at the development, questioned the rationale behind it when existing colleges of education are not producing enough teachers for primary schools in the country.
He said, "This penchant to want to convert colleges of education to universities, frankly I see no need for it. Universities already have faculties of education. "And many of the conventional universities have this already. Why don't we produce enough for this basic level first?
"We can have some level of specialisation because improvements come. And some of them already have that. But do we want to convert all our colleges of education to universities when we are not producing enough for our primary schools?"
He, therefore, urged federal and state governments to prioritise education at the basic level, even as he buttressed his argument with Germany and Japan where their teachers at the basic level earn more than their counterparts at the tertiary level. Similarly, Olugbeko in his speech, warned that there would be negative consequences if there are no colleges of education in the country.
The COEASU president argued that the move is a misplaced priority on the part of government.
He called on government to borrow a leaf from China where universities are being converted to technical institutions.
"Doing that is at the peril of basic level of education.
"Because when we talk about colleges of education, they were established for the purpose of catering for the basic level of education.
"What they believe is that tertiary education is all about universities. And that is why they keep on converting colleges of education to universities at the detriment of the system,” he said.
He equally condemned the development in Lagos State where he said all state-owned polytechnics and colleges of education have been converted to universities.
"In Lagos State today, there is no polytechnic or college of education at the level of the state. "They have converted all of them to universities and this will have dire consequences on the state because while countries that are making waves in technology are converting their universities to polytechnics, as it was done in China, instead what we have in Nigeria is at the reverse where we see our legislators sponsoring bills to convert colleges of education to universities because they already have existing structures. To us, this will have dire consequences on our education.
