The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) and the Colleges of Education Academic Staff Union (COEASU) have opposed the growing trend of converting public colleges of education to universities.
They stated this in Abuja on Friday at a three-day national conference and workshop on Digital Pedagogy and Fundable Research Proposal Writing organised by COEASU in collaboration with the Committee of Provosts.
They described this trend as disturbing without considering the important role colleges of education played in producing teachers at the basic education level.
The Executive Secretary of TETFund, Sonny Echono, expressed dismay at the development, questioned the rationale behind it when existing colleges of education were not producing enough teachers for primary schools.
Echono urged federal and state governments to prioritise education at the basic level, arguing that Germany and Japan teachers at the basic level earn more than their counterparts at the tertiary level.
“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?
“And you know the concept of the pyramid. The highest number of enrollment is at the primary level. Because people begin to drop out as they move to higher level.
“So that’s where we need the highest number of teachers.
“And in countries that get it right, I can give examples of Germany and Japan. It is the teachers at the basic level that earn more than the teachers even at the tertiary level,” he said.
On his part, the President of COEASU, Dr Smart Olugbeko, warned that there would be negative consequences if there were no colleges of education in the country.
Olugbeko called on government to borrow a leaf from China where universities were 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.
“And this is the level of education that anybody that wants to be literate will need to pass through. They are specially dedicated to train people that will teach at this level,” he said.
He also 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, 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.
“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 colleges being converted to universities. To us, this will have dire consequences on our education,” he added.