Some Of The Challenges Facing Rural Teachers

Working in the rural area can be challenging and teaching children who are foreigners are more tasking and as a teacher who want to achieve his purpose and objective of being a teacher must be get put in more effort to make this a reality. I have been a teacher in my place for the past sixteen years and now I have been posted to a village where the pupils are Beninoise whose parents migrated into Nigeria as farmers. Here are some of the challenges I face as a teacher in the Turks area

1. Language barrier

The children can only speak their mother tongue and interacting with them is problematic. I had to take up those who can speak Yoruba language then use them to translate for others. And now I am glad I can see one of the children who can read not only yoruba words but also getting better in pronouncing English words. Though it is a daunting task I had to put up now it is paving way.

2. Power source

In the city we have access to electric power sources and somewhere solar and inverters but here in the village we are faced with no electric power source and charging our phones and laptop for teaching the pupils becomes problematic. I have to resort to using power bank for my phone and now hoping to get enough cash to get solar powered inverter for my laptop and light source.

3. Internet source

The internet here is erratic and slow I learnt there is WiFi gadget I can use then I purchased that to get better service and that has helped me a bit. The rate at which they deduct data is at the speed of light. I belief someday we shall have access to unlimited internet in Nigeria this will be helpful for teachers to show children things from the internet as instructional materials. The internet speed is also poor and so the internet keep buffering during our zoom meeting

4. Security

We ride on bike to our schools in the bush and seeing the herders for the first time in the bush drives cold shill through my spines but now it seem I am used to those herders infact we have become friend as we exchange pleasantries as we journey to school. The Nigeria situation has caused this fear and apprehension in us. Though we sometime get disturbed by some miscreant among these herders but the security operatives, Amotekun and OPC are up to the task here in our local government.

5. Lack of workmanship

In my school we are only two and the school head is the third teacher and we need to handle more than one class at a time to teach the pupils. I will advice the government to employ more teachers who are ready to work in the rural areas.

5. Getting out resources

Getting our worksheet for 5 cowries has not been helpful at all. I wish the driver can drop off our worksheet along as he travel to Saki.

As teachers we should not allow these problems to distract us from achieving out objectives. We shall keep searching for alternatives to meet up.