The Effects of Absence of Teachers Residential Quarters Within The School Premises on School Administration in Nigeria

THE EFFECTS OF ABSENCE OF TEACHERS RESIDENTIAL QUARTERS WITHIN THE SCHOOL PREMISES ON SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION IN NIGERIA

 INTRODUCTION

1.1     HISTORICAL BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

          Education was used by the early Europeans as an effective instrument for the achievement of a total evangelization of West Africa in general and that of Nigeria in particular. Education of Nigeria is therefore became the pre-occupation of those early European missionaries. To achieve their objectives the missionaries established primary institutions. This was not a record policy but practised.

          Missionaries discovered that teaching as a humble profession does not demand any hit and run process on the part of the personnel, hence the importance of teachers residential quarters in those days and teachers living in teachers quarter enhanced job satisfaction of the early teachers. There was a very high degree of interaction among the headmasters, teachers pupils and the school community. The result of which was high standard of performance and good morals among the teachers and their pupils. Both teachers and pupils grew, morally, spiritually, and physically etc.

          Teachers’ residential quarters flourished and teachers lived in them until the Nigerian Civil war when schools were used as army barracks. Soldiers camsped in both school buildings and teachers residential quarters which were deserted by the teacher for fear of constant air raids and the conscription into the army.

          The presence of the troops in the schools made the schools target of constant air raids by the opponent troops. Most of the schools’ infrastructures were therefore brought to complete ruin including teachers’ residential quarters. This condition was made pronounced in the affected war zones. Teachers’ residential quarters therefore became things of the past in almost all the primary schools including all other institutions f high learning in Nigeria.

          Immediately after the civil war in 1970 education in most part of the country took a different shape. That was as a result of “government (state) taken-over of the schools from the missionaries”. This took-over affected all the states in Nigeria. It was therefore bye-bye to the voluntary agencies, who prior to the take-over, where the owners of most of both the primary schools and post primary institutions in the country with the government take-over of the schools and the subsequent introduction of universal free primary education in the country, as a result there was population explosion in the schools involving both pupils and teachers. Teachers and pupils increased in large number in both primary and post primary institutions.