By Godfrey AKON
Nigeria has formerly launched Professional Standards for school Leadership to support and enhance the effectiveness of school management.
Minister of Education, Prof Tahir Mamman, who unveiled the document in Abuja on Thursday, pledged federal government’s commitment to provide necessary resources, training, and support to help teachers succeed in their profession.
Mamman said teachers were critical in developing value systems in learners, adding that government will implement teachers scheme as a way of improving the quality of education in the country.
The minister said professional standards would serve as a comprehensive framework designed to support and enhance the effectiveness of school leadership.
According to him, the standards were not mere guidelines, but a vision of what exemplary leadership should be by providing a clear pathway for professional growth and institutional success.
“To our school leaders, we want to say this, our work is at the heart of our educational mission. You have the power to inspire, to innovate, and to make a lasting difference in the lives of countless students.
“These standards are here to guide, support and challenge you to reach new heights. Embrace them with the passion and dedication that defines your leadership.
“Let us all commit to upholding these standards, not as a set of rules, but as a shared vision of excellence.
“Together, we can build an education system that do not only meets the needs of today but anticipates and prepares for the challenges of tomorrow,” he said.
Also speaking, the Registrar of Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria, TRCN, Prof. Josiah Ajiboye, said school leadership was critical to changing the landscape in teaching profession of the country.
Ajiboye noted that the idea is to produce instructional leadership in our school leaders so that they will not only be managing the chalk and duster but they will also be able to manage the instruction in their various school system.
“Nigeria is the first country in Africa to have a professional standards for school leadership which is a milestone achievement and being recorded under the TRCN.
“We want to see this professional standards making impact in our school leaders because over the years we have now come to realise that apart from the learners factor, the next most critical factor in a school system is the school leaders.
“We believe that if this school leadership document is well utilised, it will transform our classrooms and school system.
” If we have good leaders in our school system it will revolutionalise our school system and we will begin to see better results from our schools,” he said.
On his part, the Director Programmes, British Council, Chikodi Onyemerela, effective school leadership would invariably create an effective learning environment that students could benefit from.
Onyemerela said that school leadership was an indispensable outcomes of the whole school system.
The professional standards comprised five core domains which are: promoting school improvement and innovation and leading teaching and learning.
Others are developing self and others, leading and managing the school and engaging and working with the community.
In his remarks, the National President of Nigeria Union of Teachers, NUT, Audu Amba, called on the Federal Government to reverse its decision to stop funding the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria, TRCN.
Amba said the decision to stop funding the council was inimical, noting that the council was critical to the development of teaching profession in the country.
“TRCN is the regulatory body that professionalise every body that teaches in primary, secondary and universities.
“We woke up overnight that federal government decided to say that they have stopped funding the TRCN.
“I have never seen everywhere in the world that a regulatory body that supposed to regulate the teaching profession is not funded, do we really mean business when doing this?.
“Are we saying that teachers are inconsequential?. We will not allow it go as leaders of teachers.
“We will agitate and make sure government fund TRCN because we have gone a long way as the leading country in Africa, so we can’t be seen retracting back,” he said.
