This document discusses open education and teacher education in Nigeria. It defines open education as providing free and inclusive access to education without barriers. The evolution of teacher education in Nigeria is described, from early missionary efforts to the establishment of institutions like the National Open University of Nigeria. Teacher education aims to impart knowledge, skills, and attitudes to learners. For sustainable human development, teachers must continuously upgrade their skills and knowledge through opportunities provided by open education. Recommendations include improving teacher conditions, requiring continuous professional development, and establishing open education programs to strengthen higher education teaching.

1. OPEN EDUCATION, TEACHER EDUCATION
AND THE QUEST FOR SUSTAINABLE HUMAN
DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA
BY
SAHEED OLANREWAJU JABAAR PhD
AND
HAUWA ALI
FACULTY OF EDUCATION
NORTHWEST UNIVERSITY, KANO NIGERIA

2. Outline
• Introduction
• Defining Open Education
• Teacher Education in Nigeria in the context of
Open Education: A historical overview
• The Concept of Teacher Education
• Teacher education and sustainable human
development.
• Conclusion and recommendations

3. Introduction
• Formal education alone cannot sustainably
provide the man power needs of a nation.
• Knowledge in our contemporary world is
constantly changing.
• Knowledge sharing is key for sustainable
human capital development of a nation.
• Open education offers becomes very relevant
especially in teacher education.

4. Teachers can be likened to brain in the human body
towards actualization of educational goals and national
development.
Human societies are composed of human capital, natural resources, and
social institutions that bind the society together. Of the the three, human
capital is the most critical.

5. Defining open education
The concept of openness suggest the following:
• Free access
• Removal of impediments and barriers.
• Inclusiveness
It has the advantages of being:
• Interactive
• Collaborative
• Participatory
• Flexible in terms of pace, time and place

6. Open education in Nigeria National
Policy on Education
Open education is meant to:
• Provide access to quality education
• Meet educational needs of employees
• Encourage internalization of tertiary education curricular.
• Ameliorating the effect of internal and external brain drain in tertiary
institutions.
Open education in Nigeria has taken forms such as:
• Correspondence courses
• Part time programmes
• External degrees
• Sandwich courses

7. Evolution of teacher education in the
context of open education in Nigeria
• Teacher education began with the effort of Christian
missionaries such as CMS, Presbyterians, Baptists,
Wesleyans and the like.
• The focus was production of Grade III and Grade II
teachers to teach in all classes in primary schools.
• Following the 1955 and 1957 UPE in the Old Western
and Eastern Nigerian respectively, there was need to
produce more teachers.
• The Elliot commission of 1943 culminated in the
establishment of the University College, Ibadan.
• Ashby report of 1960 culminated in establishment of
Colleges of Education.

8. contn
• Distance education in Nigeria dates back to the era of
correspondence education.
• The first indigenous distance learning programme started
as an English Radio programme of NBC in 1960.
• University of Lagos started its correspondence and Open
Studies Unit in 1974.
• The National Teachers’ Institute (NTI) started distance
education institution in 1976
• Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) Zaria started its distance
education termed Teacher in Education Programme (TISEP)
in 1972.
• ABU later introduced University of the Air programme for
secondary school teachers.

9. contn
• University of Ibadan started its Distance
Learning Institute in 1979.
• The first distance learning tertiary institution
in Nigeria was the National Open University of
Nigeria (NOUN) was established in 1983.
• It was re established and reactivated in 2002.

10. National Open University, Nigeria
(NOUN

11. The concept of Teacher Education
• A teacher is the one who is specially trained to
impart knowledge, skills and other qualities to
learners in a formal system (Dada,1999)

12. contn
• Teacher Education is professional education of teachers
to attain knowledge, skills and attitudes considered
desirable by the society (Osuji, 2009).
• It is meant to make teacher to be efficient and effective
in their work.
• It should be a good blend of knowing what to teach
(content) and how to teach it (method)
• For human capital development to be sustainable,
teacher education should be continuous.
• In spite of considerable improvement in the entry
qualification into the teaching profession, the sector is
still faced with myriad of challenges such as:

13. Challenges facing Teaching Profession
• Poor condition of service
• Poor social status
• Issue of professionalization
• Inadequate training of pre service teachers
• Inadequate in service training for in service
teachers.
• Poor supervision of in service teachers

14. Teachers and sustainable human
development
• Sustainability of human capital demands the plan to
ensure the quality and quantity of professionals
available today are available in future.
• To ensure this, teachers must possess the
knowledge, skills, values and competencies we desire
to have in the future generations.

15. contn
• Inadequacy of efficient teachers especially at
all levels of education leads to a vicious cycle
of mediocrity.
• Teachers’ knowledge of subject matter and
their teaching skills need to be continuously
upgraded and updated.
• Open education offers a unique opportunity
for its capacity to break barriers imposed by
time and space.

16. To break the seeming vicious cycle of mediocrity in the
man power development of Nigerian nation, teachers
at all levels need to avail themselves of the immense
opportunities provided by open education to update
their knowledge.
Flexibility and dynamism that characterizes open education make it
possible for teachers in tertiary education to update their teaching skills
in spite of their tight schedule.

17. Conclusions
• Teachers are key toward ensuring that the
knowledge, skills and competencies required
for national development are transmitted to
the future generation
• Teachers at all levels in Nigeria can utilize the
available open educational resources to
develop themselves professional without
having to leave their jobs.

18. Recommendations
• Condition of service of teachers needs to be
improved.
• Continuous professional development of
teachers at all level should be compelled.
• National Open University should float PGDE
with a focus on teaching in higher education.
• Need to reposition open education so that its
products can compete favourable with
products of conventional universities.

19. GOD BLESS YOU ALL
THANK YOU FOR LISTENING