PROFESSIONALISATION OF TEACHING IN NIGERIA

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Teaching, just as any means of livelihood has been struggling between the status of being a profession and occupation. Many educationists have consistently seen teaching as a profession based on the face that it has fulfilled some basic requirements of a profession.
There has been the general talk that any means of livelihood is a profession, but this has been proved wrong in the sense that profession goes beyond just being a means of livelihood.

• A profession must have a theoretical and practical knowledge mastered exclusively by practitioners
• There must be a fairly long time of training in the field of such profession
• A profession has responsibility for developing and enforcing a code of conduct
• There is the need for professions to have viable associations or unions for the promotion of professionalism among members.
  
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There is need to professionalize teaching in Nigeria if we must overcome problems that are associated with our educational system. The present situation makes all Tom, Dick and Harry plunge into teaching without requisite qualifications, an end must be put to this in order for teaching to be fully professionalized in Nigeria.

Teaching in Nigeria is still struggling to attain the full status of professionalism. Here are some barriers to its professionalism

• People without teaching qualifications are still teaching in our schools
• The door of the profession is opened to different people with different motives; people who failed to succeed in other professions use teaching a succour.
• Non educators are in charge of education ministries ,boards and agencies.

The following strategies should be adopted:

There is need to demand for greater commitment of Teachers' Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN) in regulating teaching

One of the factors that has made teaching to be detested is the humiliating salary being offered to teachers. They should be placed on a special salary that would reflect the peculiarity of the profession.

There should be provision for teachers capacity to be developed through in-service training like seminars, workshop and so on. This would make the teachers to be in tune with the current issues in their fields.

There is need for the government to make a law that only professionally qualified people be employed to teach in schools.

The teachers' professional organisation, Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) must be strengthened to be able to perform its statutory functions

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BENEFITS OF PROFESSIONALISATION OF TEACHING

• Increase in the status and dignity of teachers in public estimate
• Increase in job opportunities for qualified teachers
• It leads to professional excellence as it open doors of opportunity for professional development of teachers
• It ensures strict implementation of professional code of conduct for teachers thereby eliminating the twin evils of indiscipline and corruption from the system