The teachers
Two of the main problems facing vernacular education are the lack of
suitable teachers and the lack of training. Bums (1965) reports that African
countries which had introduced compulsory primary education had to
employ large numbers of untrained teachers. Thus in 1961, of the 40 OOO
primary school teachers in West Nigeria, 26 OOO (65 per cent) were untrained.
This was due (1) to a lot of qualified teachers going to work in
secondary schools, and (2) to the large number of extra pupils following the
introduction of compulsory education without a prior teacher-training
scheme to provide sufficient teachers. As a result of the lack of training,
standards dropped, vernacular languages and the teaching profession lost in
status, and wages were reduced. This in tum caused a lot of teachers to leave
for more remunerative or less arduous jobs, so that the remaining teachers
were basically of two groups: those with a sense of vocation, and those who
could not pass exams.