CBT Test: No plans to “Christianise” on going TESCOM teachers’ recruitment exercise – Oyo govt replies MURIC

Oyo state government on Saturday said that there was no plans to ” Christianise ” the ongoing recruitment process by its  Post Primary Schools Teaching Service Commission (TESCOM) as claimed by  the  Muslim Right Concern (MURIC).

The state government in a statement by the Permanent Secretary, Oyo TESCOM Mrs  Grace Olabisi Oderinde said that the issue of  the contents of the CBT assessment raised by MURIC does not only applicable to Muslims alone but to others affiliations, saying “the inadvertently CRK contents found in the Muslim applicant’s also affected candidates of other religious affiliations”.

“The Commission enormously values the uniqueness and diversity of candidates as well as community and therefore understands that people from diverse religious affiliations need to work together in a safe and respectful environment. However, by virtue of the technology employed to assess the candidates (CBT), questions were randomly distributed to candidates based on established metrics. i.e Computer randomly distributed various questions to different candidates”, it said.

He said in line with its principle of fairness, it will  remove  religious contents from its ongoing Computer Based Test (CBT) being conducted for recruitment process for  teachers into secondary schools in the state adding, “the assessment will be ranked over Forty-five (45) instead of over Fifty(50) due to five(5) religious contents”.

Debunking MURIC allegation further, he said that Oyo TESCOM “currently has several full and part time Muslim Board members while three out of the four Directors are Muslims”, saying, “TESCOM’s management and the CBT consultants usually conduct a high-level meeting at the end of the day to evaluate the daily assessment with a view to analysing and improving our service delivery. We usually review analytics and valuable insights from our daily report of the assessment and take proactive measures to ensure standardisation, fairness and inclusion of all our applicants”

“The attention of the Oyo State Post Primary Schools Teaching Service Commission (TESCOM)  has been drawn  to the publication in print and social media platforms by Muslim Right Concern (MURIC) on August 14, 2020 regarding the ongoing Computer Based Test (CBT) being conducted as part of  recruitment process for  teachers into secondary schools in Oyo state regarding the inclusion of  Christian Religious Knowledge  contents as part of assessment for Muslim candidates and other religious affiliations in  Computer Studies and Physics subjects conducted on Tuesday, 11th August, 2020.”

On the reduction of the assessment mark from 50 to 45, Oyo state government stated that “this unanimous decision was made to remove all imagined or real bias, and in the overall interest of  inclusion and diversity while the Management and Board are passionately committed to evaluating the ongoing CBT process with a view to addressing all necessary concerns”

” The Board and Management of TESCOM wishes to assure MURIC, all stakeholders and indeed the entire citizenry of Oyo State that we shall not deviate from the good vision of His Excellency, Engr. Seyi Makinde in transforming the education sector in Oyo state to greater heights  and to promote inclusion and diversity  in the teaching sector of the  pacesetter state. “

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