Recent report to the effect that about 1251 teachers without requisite teaching qualification may be shown the way out of their job in Nasarawa state is no doubt a mixed grill. The major and foremost implication of the plan, when effected, is that the nation’s already saturated unemployment market will have to accommodate more jobless Nigerians, thus worsening the dire security situation in the country.
The executive chairman, Nasarawa State Universal Basic Education Board (NSUBEB), Hon. Muhammad Musa Dan’azimi, made the revelation last week at his office in Lafia while inaugurating a seven-man implementation committee to disengage all teachers without requisite teaching qualification in line with the Federal Ministry of Education directive,. Dan’azimi charged the committee to carry out its assignments with due diligence, devoid of any sentiments or favour.
The chairman who was represented by the board Secretary, Hajiya Hashiya Ahmed, said there were about 1251 teachers without requisite teaching qualification still teaching in primary schools across the state. He warned that there would be no tolerance for quackery in the teaching profession in Nasarawa state. Dan’azimi said the committee has been given the mandate to take every necessary step to ensure that the affected teachers are registered with National Teachers Institute (NTI) and College of Education, Akwanga to obtain requisite teaching qualification or risk their appointment.
In his remarks, the chairman of the implementation committee and director, planning, research and statistics, NSUBEB, Isah Eyah, thanked the management of SUBEB for finding them worthy and promised to justify the confidence reposed on them. The Minister of Education Mallam Adamu Adamu had warned unqualified teachers to either acquire requisite qualification or disengage from teaching profession.
The Kaduna state government had in 2018 sacked over 22,000 teachers because, according to the state governor, Nasir El-Rufai, the affected persons were unqualified. El-Rufai said that the sacking of incompetent teachers did not start with his administration, adding that previous governments also did likewise.
He pointed out that at the resumption of office, the Education Sector Support Programme in Nigeria, ESSPIN, report he received showed that 83 per cent of the teachers scored less than 25 per cent in Maths and literacy exams. The governor, who spoke in a broadcast to Kaduna people ahead of the New Year, recalled that the government of the late Sir Patrick Yakowa dismissed 4,000 teachers with fake results.
He further recalled that the Yakowa government responded to reports that 50 per cent of primary school teachers were unqualified by giving such teachers a five-year deadline to acquire the appropriate qualifications.
El-Rufai said, “The Kaduna State Executive Council, at its August 8, 2012 meeting, after considering the report of the verification committee, gave a five-year window for under-qualified teachers to acquire the Nigeria Certificate in Education (NCE). This five-year grace period has now expired, and that is why this administration weeded out teachers who didn’t have the requisite skills and qualifications to teach,” he said.
El-Rufai also recalled that the 2015 ESSPIN report on pupil and teacher competence levels showed that 83 per cent of the teachers scored less than 25 per cent in Maths and literacy exams. Primary two pupils scored an average of 14 per cent in English and 27 per cent in Maths, while primary four pupils scored an average of 13 per cent in English and 17 per cent in Numeracy.
The governor added, “The government responded to this report by getting the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) to conduct a survey of teacher competence. We took further steps to address these gaps by training and retraining the teachers.”
However, in 2018 the Kaduna state government had to again sack 4,562 out of the 15,897 teachers it recruited to replace the 22,000 unqualified teachers who were sacked in 2017. Ja’afaru Sani, the then commissioner for education, said the sacked teachers could not write a proper acceptance letter after they were offered their employment letters, which shows that their names were illegally included in the lists of candidates who had undergone thorough screening during the recruitment exercise.
Although, the oft resort to the mass sack of teachers as a panacea for improving the quality of education by government may serve some useful purpose but overtime it has proved to be mere cosmetic. Teachers have unwittingly become the scape-goat in the massive corruption that has stymied the education sector and robbed it of development. We, therefore, urge government at all levels to be holistic in their efforts to reform the education sector rather than make teachers the fall guys in a beleaguered system.
