SPECIAL REPORT…. How Lagos teachers brave the seas to teach at the Forest of Warriors

At the presentation of the 2018 national budget in Abuja last week, the Nigerian government allocated 7.04 percent of the 8.6 trillion budgets to the education sector, a far cry from the 26 percent national budget recommended by the United Nation.

Same week in Kaduna, Governor el-Rufai was forced to sack over 22,000 teachers for allegedly failing examinations set for primary four students.

In spite of these, there are still teachers in the sector who still brave the odds to impact students. Ripples Nigeria’s investigative team led by Kelechukwu Iruoma and Akin Obakeye visited Snake Island in Lagos to unravel what teachers in Igbologun secondary school are doing to deliver quality education.

It’s Monday morning at Igbologun (Forest of Warriors), a village on Snake Island, a suburb in Lagos; Gambo, the vice principal of Igbologun Senior Secondary School, clutches two bags as she struggles with other passengers to alight from a 15-seater wooden boat.

She had boarded the wooden boat at the jetty side of Coconut, somewhere off the ever busy Apapa port in Lagos metropolis. Gambo is one of the teachers who brave the seas to teach in Igbologun Secondary School, a school located on the Island in Amuwo Odofin local government.

The Vice Principal of Igbologun Senior Secondary School, dressed in black skirt, struggles to alight from a boat

Snake Island derives its name from the snaky way it appears on the map, contrary to the view of the presence of many snakes. The journey to the Island begins from Coconut bus stop to the jetty. Water is the means of transportation with either wooden or fibre boat run by engine. Wooden boat operators charge N100 per passengers while charter of fibre boats cost about N1000 for 15 passengers. With a wooden boat, it’s about 10 minutes drive while it is five minutes with fibre boat.

The island houses a shipyard called Niger Dock.. As one approaches the island, passengers are greeted by motorcyclists who strive to carry them. There are three major villages on the island: Igbologun, Igboeseyore and Igboisu, and other 13 neighbouring villages, according to the Chairman, Board of Trustees (BOT) of Snake Island, Alhaji Gamorudeen Bolarinwa, who refused his picture be used.

The registered BOT was established to administer the day-to-day activities on Snake Island and to create a platform where people can use to relate to the community.

According to Bolarinwa, Snake Island was established over 300 years ago and was founded by one Okoisu, a hunter. Okoisu with his two brothers came from Olofin, in Ogun state to settle on the island. He settled specifically on Igbologun. Over time, he asked his two brothers, Akeisu and Oyibolaberun to go and settle in the two other villages.

The population of Snake Island is 500,000, said Bolarinwa and further said that the people of Snake Island are into fishing and farming.

Snake Island has been in existence before Nigeria became a nation. Yet, it lacks basic social amenities like schools, good roads, hospitals, among other things. The first building on the Island to behold is Igbologun Secondary School, located in Igbologun, one of the villages on the island. That is where Gambo teaches.

Igbologun secondary school… where teachers brave the seas to teach

On the Lagos state school portal website, it is stated that Igbologun Senior Secondary School was established in 1986 by the then military government in Lagos State in collaboration with NigerDock Nigeria Plc. But a former teacher, Olawale Ogunbiyi (not real name) who taught in the school for years told Ripples Nigeria that the school was constructed by Niger Dock without collaboration with the government.

Igbologun Junior Secondary School, on the other hand, commenced activities on the 6th January 2003 after the split of Igbologun secondary school into Igbologun junior and senior secondary schools. A senior teacher in the junior school who preferred anonymity for fear of being victimized said teachers face a lot of challenges to deliver quality education to Igbologun students.

Teachers abandon their families to empower students
Igbologun secondary and primary schools are the only government-owned schools on the island, and with the huge number of students attending the school from the three villages and other neighbouring villages, teachers go through strains to meet the educational demands of the students, especially in Igbologun secondary school.

The majority of the teachers do not live on the island. Some live distance away from the island, and to run the daily activities of the school effectively and to increase the literacy rate of the community, some of the teachers abandoned their families to sleep in the school till the weekend

A teacher in the junior school who prefers anonymity said, “Staff working here come from very far distance. That is why you see some of them will come on Monday, and will not go back till Friday,” adding, “You know the traffic jam in Lagos, so they have to stay here, spend four or five days before they get back to their families.”

Junior principal’s office…he has a bed to sleep on

Teachers who come to school daily, as Ripples Nigeria was told, spend much on transportation due to the traffic jam along Apapa road. On a trip to Coconut, if a teacher does not board a motorcycle, he may end up spending up to an hour on the road from Mile 2.

School converts classroom to bedroom, pleads for staff quarters
At the school, a building which used to house classrooms was converted to temporary residential rooms for teachers who do not go home to sleep. Ripples Nigeria, in the course of the investigation, noticed that teachers sleep in the building. The principals of the junior and senior schools had mattresses in their offices.

Ogunbiyi confirmed that a classroom building was converted to bedrooms by a former senior school principal, Mrs. Oke, for teachers who lived very far so they could find a place to sleep.

“She built it on her own; with her own money. Some of them have to sleep there because of the distance to reduce cost. The school has a lot of space to play with. It can be a school complex. They do not have seats but the population is manageable,” Ogunbiyi said.

The senior teacher revealed that teachers in the school need staff quarters to sleep after each day’s activities so that they can stop sleeping in the school.

From classroom to bedroom… Converted class where teachers sleep

Limited teachers, double tasks
There is a huge shortfall in the number of teachers. Ripples Nigeria gathered that due to phobia of boat rides, since it was the only means of transportation, some of the teachers failed to accept redeployment to the school, thereby compelling available teachers to teach more than one subject.

“We have so many subjects that I can tell you have no teachers,” said a teacher. I have not seen any teacher that teaches one subject. Economics, social studies, IRK, Civic Education and physical health education have no teachers.”

“Government is not doing enough to support the teachers based on what I have seen because we have held meetings and the principal has been requesting for more teachers. The government will tell them that they are about to employ teacher, that they cannot just employ teachers because of a particular school, and that it will be a general decision,” he said.

Ogunbiyi said that the school has always had qualified and professional teachers. “They have professional and qualified teachers. I had a Masters degree in English while I taught there. I still have colleagues there that are Masters degree holders. The Geography teacher is a Masters holder, the chemistry teacher has two masters degree. He is doing his Ph.D now.” The corps member also reaffirms that the school has quality teachers but lacks quantity.

Between 2011 and 2015, sub-Saharan Africa needed  to recruit about 225,000 additional teachers per year to achieve universal primary education, according to a report by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The region accounts for 57% of the global total need for additional school teachers, or 63% if the deadline is extended to 2030.

“Nigeria has by far the largest gap to fill because enrolment is low. Between 2011 and 2015, it needs 212,000 school teachers, 13% of the global total,” the report said.

“The greatest teacher shortages are in sub-Saharan Africa, which needs a total of about 17 million teachers to achieve universal primary and secondary education by 2030. About 6.3 million primary teachers are needed: 2.4 million to fill new teaching posts to accommodate all children and 3.9 million to replace the teachers expected to leave the profession. At the secondary level, the region must recruit 10.8 million teachers by 2030, including 7.1 million for new teaching positions and 3.7 million to replace those who have left,” another UNESCO report says.

Every education system is only as good as the teachers who provide the hands-on schooling. Study after study has confirmed their critical role in improving education quality and learning outcomes, which is why SDG 4 calls specifically for a major increase in the supply of qualified teachers.

Old buildings, no seats, windows, ceiling, electricity
The classrooms do not have 21st-century environment to impact. Ripples Nigeria observed that the school classes do not have seats, windows, electricity and ceiling. The white boards are old and need to be changed.

No electricity and ceilings… Classrooms not conducive for learning

The corps member said the classrooms are not conducive. “For learning to take place, there must be conducive classrooms. There are classrooms and there are no seats. Some of the students are sitting on the ground and the population is high. You will see like 60 students per class and they do not have seats,” he said.

Some of the students whose parents can afford to construct seats do so and the students take the seats back home after each term and bring them back when next term begins. “As a child is promoted to the next class, the child is carrying the seats to the next class and the other class will be empty and it is left for those coming to that class to come with their chairs. If they do not have chairs, they will seat on the ground,” he said.

“They need to put windows and provide seats for them to make the classes look conducive for them. Without that, they may not get what they want, “ he added.

While light is constant in teachers’ offices, laboratory, computer room and the classrooms-turned bedrooms, no electric power is available in any of the utilized classrooms in the school despite the availability of two standard solar generators donated to the school by Niger Dock.

Ripples investigation revealed that the community has not had power for months. Students, however, use the laboratory, computer room and the teachers rooms for study and to iron their school uniforms.