Whether by love, as a result of admission frustration, or even the advice from a brother, sister, or parents, candidates may want to look for an external guide on whether they should go for education courses or not.
This post will take you by the hands and show you why you may want to consider an education course instead of other courses.
Education Courses are Taken at Universities and Colleges of Education Only
Must you wish to go for an education course, you should know that it can only be possible at universities and colleges of education.
In other words, polytechnics and Innovative Enterprise Institutes are not meant to train prospective teachers.
If you take your journey from or through the colleges of education, you will be trained for three years (NCE Year 1, year 2, and year 3). After this, you're an NCE holder.
With this, you're qualified to be a teacher at any private or public primary or secondary school, both home or abroad.
You can as well start your journey to owning your own school as a qualified proprietor/proprietress.
And if you decide to continue your studies, you're open to some options, such as a direct entry admission into a university for an education course or other course of your choice. You can also consider a part-time, sandwich, or distance learning programme to earn your bachelor's Degree in Education.
If you consider the direct entry, you will ill be admitted to the 200 level or 300 level for some universities. There, you will spend 3 or 2 more years to complete the programme admitted. After this, you earn your degree.
If you take to the university for your education course journey, you will spend only 4 years, after which you earn your degree and you're a qualified teacher.
Why You Should Consider an Education Course Over Others
Below, from my experience and that of others, are the reasons you should consider an education course over other non-education courses.
1. Even Without Education Course You May End Up Teaching
Of course, most of us never dreamed of becoming teachers.
In fact, back then in schools, if we were asked who wished to be a teacher, the next thing we thought of was to go out of class.
Who wanted to raise his or her hands?
But with time, 50% of us realized that the quickest way to make a few bucks when you're done in secondary schools was to teach at our conner-side nursery and primary schools. Even after graduating from universities or polytechnics, the closest open opportunity is teaching.
The same happened when you're seeking admission. You never wanted to go for education. Hence, your choices were Accounting, Law, Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, Business Administration, Physics, Chemistry, and Biology to mention a few.
Now, you're out of school with no jobs out there for you, other than the abandoned stones (teaching).
Then, finally, you end up a teacher. Whereas, you may need to do this for more than a decade before you can get a befitting job (if any ever come).
The question is why haven't you gone for education in the first place?
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2. Going For Other Courses May Waste Your Time
After finishing their Higher National Diploma (HND) or Bachelors of Science (in non-education courses), a few graduates then realized they ought to have gone for education in the first place.
They now understood that their courses were really not needed in the labor market. They later found out it's difficult to find ways among the competing heads in their fields.
They now see value in education. They can easily be employed for teaching. They get class teachers' offers but they're never the recognized-teachers. They are never paid the same amount their qualified (trained) colleagues were being paid. And for the worst, they can't be employed by the public sector (government).
What can they do to get along?
They now want to go for the postgraduate diploma in education (PGDE) to be equal to colleagues who had gone straight for an education course in the first place. The PGDE may take one or two years eventually. Some decide to convert their courses to education through Direct Entry and other related programmes or HND/BSC conversion pregrammes.
The summary of which is a waste of time. Why not from the very start? Don't make the same mistake!
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3. Education Courses are Ever Relevant
I've met with students who were running courses that are not really relevant in this country or at best were rarely needed due to economic situations in the country.
Imagine the Insurance, Zoology, Geology, etc.
These courses can be some of the best. However, in Nigeria, things are different, especially lately.
Tell me the number of zoos in your community. How many does Nigeria have left? How many animals are left in those places that you can't find in your local villages?
Show me a hungry Nigerian or a middle-class (for that matter) ready to spend his money on a particular insurance policy? Don't tell a hustler to pay a premium unless you want to play with a tiger's tail.
You don't have to be blind to certain economic and social challenges in this country because you don't like an education course.
In the end, it could be best for you to go for an education course whose market is readily available in both the private and public sectors.
If nothing else is selling in this nation, Education will keep thriving.
Even though people are coming out of schools with no clue as to how the labor market will treat them, very many (millions yearly) are still gaining entrance to primary and secondary schools while the same numbers (if not more) are obtaining JAMB forms.
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4. Recent Federal Government Policies May Favor You
Are you aware that the Federal Government of Nigeria has made it known that graduates of Education will get automatic jobs henceforth?
Although it's only a matter of time to know if this is achievable.
However, with this before you, if this government or any future administration, should implement this, you're a lucky graduate if you satisfy the terms.
Not limited to that,
- education graduates will be entitled to monthly stipends (which starts more likely when they're given offers)
- both prospective and existing teachers will benefit from the new salary scales for the teachers
- there will be an increase in the number of years of service from 35 to 40 for the existing and prospective teachers
- and more.
5. Education Courses are Self-Establishing
As soon as you're done with your NCE or B.Edu, you're open to job offers from private schools or public ones (this may not be as fast though). At the same time, you're legally qualified to start your own school.
You and I are aware of the money coming in, from owning schools. You might have seen what your former school's proprietor or proprietress was able to achieve within 5 years, that a lawyer, a doctor or a nurse couldn't afford in a decade
So, if you're thinking teachers are being maltreated by the government, that may not be forever. And if things remain the same, you still have the option to go out all on your own.
And don't say, "It's easier said than done". If you can't start a school as a graduate of education, you're just a lazy and weak teacher who can only prey on the government.
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6. Education Courses are Less Competitive
One of the courses recommended in my post, "Less Competitive University Courses With Better Employment Prospects" was an education course.
It can be less competitive because of the same feeling that education courses are less acceptable in our society or any other reasons for that matter.
Whereas some students arrogantly go for certain non-education courses they're likely never going to use in their personal or career lives. They may even hate such courses more than education. Yet, they wouldn't want to be attributed to education or the potential to become teachers.
So when seeking admissions, and you care not to waste your time (even with a moderately lower score), you can easily gain admission to education courses.
If you keep wasting your time, you may eventually end up accepting an education course. So why not now?
7. Education Courses are More Affordable
Except you go for a state-owned university, that charges literally the same tuition for education and non-education courses, you're likely to pay less for education programmes.
Across very many universities, the cost of running education courses is usually less than what you spend on courses such as Accounting, Physics, and Business Administration as if the latter is better. Whereas, in reality, they're not.
The reduction in the fee is more or less due to less competition for those courses.
If your parents are poor and could not afford the 200,000+ of UNIOSUN Agric courses or ordinary Chemistry and Physics, you may consider Education courses in federal universities or the state universities that may charge you less.
8. Education Courses Can Help You Touch More Lives
Imagine being visited by your students a few years later and they reminded you how you changed their lives. Imagine the glory, if a student, you once produced, picks up one of your own children and sponsors him or her abroad.
Being a teacher, to me, complete you as a human being. Whose lives have you touched positively before? Who will you?
Do you know, why I'm into blogging about education and counseling? Because I love touching lives.
And just recently, I read an article where the writer stated that the only success you could record when you're 30 to 40 is touching people's lives.
I think I'm a success at this age.
One of my readers recently said, "thanks for your articles, you'd helped millions of students with your writing".
I think he was right. Wasn't he?
Being a teacher is like investing and sooner or later, it will be time to reap the fruits here on earth and if you believe the scriptures, in the hereafter.
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Be Careful With Choosing Education Courses
Education courses are not born equal!
When I was condemning candidates who competed for certain courses such as Accounting, Business Administration, Nursing, Medicine, etc., I remember saying that, you'd better consider education courses.
However, I warned that not all education courses are the best to consider.
Once decided, be sure the course has a future in the country. In a country or her states where governments are discontinuing the study and offering of some courses, you may want to be choosy when making the move for an education course.
In Osun State, at a time, a governor discontinued the likes of PHE, Yoruba, CRS/IRS, Guardian and Counselling etc. This affected the then teachers and the prospective graduates from those subjects.
We're still here and we shouldn't pretend as if things are getting better. Be sure you go for a course such as Political Science Education, Literature-in-English Education, Physics Education, Chemistry Education, Biology Education, English Education, Mathematics Education etc.
The summary is to be choosy and consider courses that generally are unavoidable in schools.
Lately, I warned admission seekers to avoid considering education courses that will only prepare them to teach just a subject. If you go for certain courses, you can teach two or more subjects thereby making you unavoidable.
For example, History Education, to me, is better than English Education. Why?
While you can only take English with your English major, you can easily take Government, History, and Civic Education with History Education or Political Science Education.
Of course, some English Education graduates can, as well, take English Literature so also are graduates of Mathematics that may take Physics and vice versa.
Conclusion
Education courses are not friendly in this part of the world. However, they may be the best take for an average Nigerian admission seeker if he or she knows what I know (as detailed in the post).
Those who are embarking on a journey should ask their ways from those who have just returned. We have come, seen and conquered. You can borrow a leave of knowledge from us too.
History will always repeat itself!
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