Comment on Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholarship 2018 by Olororo Issa.
TEACHERS REWARD NO LONGER IN HEAVEN.
Teaching profession is as old as human existence and history is very rich in the names of great teachers whose teachings and the mode of living made what man is today. Since education constitutes the basis for economics, social and political orientations, it then means that teachers are no doubt the most powerful instrument for progress in any nation. Motivation comes through good condition of sevice. The notion that the reward of teachers is in heaven is irritating, unacceptable and anachronistic.
Why is it that it is only teachers’ reward that should be in heaven? After all, what is good for the goose is equally good for the gander. Most people have forgotten that teachers are indeed the goose that laid the golden egg. In the book “My life” by Late Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto described the role of teachers analogically, thus “the daily growth of a tree passes unnoticed by those that see it every day and it is only by casting their minds back along the years that they can realise the extent of the gradual development”.
After all, Teachers patronize the same market that soldiers, police, bankers, business men and women patronize”. Late Chief Obafemi Awolowo once asserted that “social problems elude social solutions simply because people do not call things by their names”. Late Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto also said in one of his speeches in 1951 that “I think that teachers deserve the greatest respect. The current plight of teachers deserve the sympathy of all Nigerians. Teachers are trained to love their students. Their products that eventually become leaders in governance must love them in reciprocal.
The government should butter the bread of teachers with improved condition of service. If we leave the future to look after itself, we will discover that when the future becomes the present, our problems will multiply in which the next generation will no doubt be in jeopardy.
Happy Teachers Day.