Perspective on Education as a Profession: Case for Professional Educators

Description

ABSTRACT

Perspective on Education as a Profession: Case for Professional Educators

Fifelomo Dawodu*

ABSTRACT
The Education Ministry has been trending lately. Constantly, we hear and read in the popular media about pronouncements, claims, directives, and counter narratives on many issues. Some of the more recent rancorous topics have been the minimum entry age for universities, compulsory vocational subjects from Basic 1, re-introducing History as a stand-alone subject, and extending basic education to 12 years.

Lately, the debate has been fast and sometimes furious. Mainly, it has been amongst the mass market, what my people would call “ariwo-oja”. Those who should be the protagonists and leading proponents in one way or another of these debates appear inaudible, if not outright silent. Perhaps papers have been written ready for publication in peer-reviewed journals; reactions have formed the theme of subject-matter workshops, seminars and conferences, and conference reports and communiques published in various academic publications. Those are their ways.

We, the masses that would be affected and bear the brunt of the somersaults, would not know. Sadly, many of those interventions, the result of many moons of painstaking research, may never be seen by you, me, or the others impacted by the contentious issues they address in their works. This is most likely the case, and it
reinforces the general criticism of academia in our part of the world; academia is removed from our day-to-day reality and does not offer much in terms of practical solutions to society’s challenges.

Keywords: Education; Ministry of Education; Reforms

INTRODUCTION
This intervention’s purpose is to examine some of the issues, which are interestingly intertwined, and use the comments as a basis to make a case for the recognition of the Education Ministry as a ‘professional’ ministry like the Justice Ministry and the Health Ministry. At this point, it is necessary to enter a caveat: the piece is not an academic paper, though the writers’ ‘kindergarten’ level of knowledge in the field of Education informs much of the perspectives and commentary on some of the issues. The caveat is necessary to avoid subjecting the text to some of the pedantic mindings about chronology, sequence of events, conception, terminology, etc., which

*LL.B, BL, a Solicitor and a graduate student of Comparative Education.

THE GRAVITAS REVIEW OF BUSINESS & PROPERTY LAW VOL.15 NO.4