By KEMI BUSARI, OAU

Teaching practice is one of the basic requirements for the award of the National Certificate of Education (NCE) and education related degree courses. The programme, which lasts between six to 12 weeks, is a platform which allows education students to take up teaching in real setting thereby availing them the opportunity of putting into practice what has been learned in the lecture rooms.

Teaching practice in Nigeria is as old as the study of education in the country. Students are posted to various schools and subjects related to their courses are undertaken under the supervision of lecturers who later award marks at the end of the exercise.

Adventurous and inspiring teaching practice is, the exercise is not free from problems and hindrances which hamper its fulfilment and sometimes stalls it on the way.

Speaking to Quadlife, teaching practice students from various schools listed non remuneration, disrespect from students, among others, as challenges they face in the course of the practice.

Adebisi Japhet is a 300 level student of Osun State College of Education, Ila Orangun, and his major challenge is over-crowded classrooms and disrespect from the students who, though are brilliant, but look down on us because we are student-teachers.”

For Olowo Omotoke ,a 400 level education student of Obafemi Awolowo University, his major challenges are accommodation and transportation.

“I spend more than N200 daily on transportation and this leaves me with little or nothing to feed on, sometimes I feed on just fried yam and sachet water for a whole day”, she lamented.

Agreeing with his colleagues, Ogundele Dorcas of the Mathematics and Economics Department, Foreign Links College of Education, Moro, added that dealing with the troublesome and aggressively notorious students is difficult.

“My experience here so far has been terrible. Even when what you have on you is not enough for your sustenance, some of the students still come to ask us for money and extra lessons. Ridiculously, some will walk up to you to say ‘Aunty I love you’. Imagine how disrespectful it is for a student to ask his teacher out.”

For Olaniyan Omotola of the Faculty of Education Obafemi Awolowo University, “the students don’t know anything and they don’t read so when our lecturers come to supervise us, it looks as if we don’t teach them.”

Quadlife sought the thoughts of Dr. Adisa Olawumi of the Osun State College of Education, Ila Orangun, who said though the exercise is achieving what its aims, but some challenges poses as stumbling blocks to its full accomplishment of its aims.

“Today’s students are not studying education because of interest but because they don’t have any other choice, and this is affecting the exercise because there is no way you’ll be a good teacher without having interest in the profession.

“Also, due to the falling standard of teaching practice, teachers at the school where the students are posted to are shying away from supervising them.”

On what could be done to make the practice a more enjoyable experience, both lecturers and students recommended that a proper remuneration system be in place to ease the stress of financial burden and serve as a source of motivation.