Teachers’ sack: El-Rufai appeals to Kaduna NASS members, receives 43,806 applicants

By AbdulRaheem Aodu Kaduna

Governor Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna state has appealed to National Assembly members from the state to “help save future generations of the state from servitude by ensuring quality public education.” Speaking in Abuja on Wednesday during a regular consultative meeting with members of the National Assembly from the state, he informed the lawmakers that the state government had received 43, 806 applications from prospective teachers in public primary schools across the state. He explained that all shortlisted applicants “will face oral and practical examinations, to be followed by interview and fi nal verifi cation to authenticate their qualifi cations,” adding that those who “scale through will undergo training on teaching before being deployed to classrooms to teach.”

“Th e issue of ensuring quality and competent teachers in public schools is something crucial and doable, but it requires courage, sincerity and honesty as guiding principles. We are all products of quality public schools and can compete anywhere in the world; we are benefi ciaries of quality education from public schools and we have achieved a lot from the sacrifi ces made by previous leaders. “Having benefi tted from quality public education, we must be committed to reviving our public schools. Th e unqualifi ed teachers that are being replaced will get all their rights and entitlements,” he said.

“This reform is necessary hard work, and will not be derailed by propaganda, blackmail, and deliberate misrepresentation of facts. Reform is not restricted to recruiting and retaining competent teachers. We are constructing and reconstructing schools, classrooms, updating the curriculum, providing facilities and teaching aids and teachers’ welfare. We removed the career barrier for teachers in 2015.

Teachers in Kaduna state can rise to Grade Level 17 (Permanent Secretary Grade) without having to stop being teachers. “The key issue here is that we must make sacrifi ces and provide our children and future generations a quality of education that can give enhance their life prospects, and guarantee self-reliance for all our people.

This can only be feasible with quality education in all our public schools at primary and secondary levels.” Rt. Hon. Yakubu Umar Barde, the Minority Whip in the House of Representatives, who led the Kaduna state National Assembly delegation to the meeting, assured the governor that they “will continue to work assiduously with him in championing the progress and development of Kaduna state.”

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