Kaduna State Government Begins Recruitment of 25,000 Teachers

The Kaduna State Government is making good its promise to drop about 22,000 primary school teachers in the state and has begun the process of recruiting 25,000 fresh number of primary school teachers.

A notice to that effect has been issued by the Kaduna State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB).

The notice signed by the executive chairman of SUBEB, Nasiru Umar, said the recruitment was part of the state government’s effort to equip all schools with competent and qualified teachers in the bid to provide quality education and learning to pupils across the state. 

The notice indicated that applicants were expected to have a certificate from the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria. 

It stressed that the Kaduna State Executive Council had approved the outcome of the teachers’ competency test and had directed immediate action to recruit new teachers.

But teachers under the aegis of the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) have threatened to embark on an industrial action should the state government go ahead with its plan to sack 21,780 primary school teachers said to have failed the primary four examination conducted to test their competency. 

Addressing newsmen at the end of its emergency State Executive Council meeting yesterday, the state chairman of the union, Comrade Audu Amba alleged that the competency test upon which the state government based its decision to sack the teachers and employ new ones was not professionally conducted.

“The only competent body that can test teachers’ competency is the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN),” Amba said. 

He said the teachers were not tested based on professionalism or based on what they studied, and that teachers had resolved to go for a showdown should government go ahead with its plan. 

He said relieving so many teachers of their job would set the state 20 years backward, and that although the NUT supported the government’s desire to improve on the quality of education in Nigeria, it did not support the modality employed by the state government in conducting the competency test.