Zulum: 3,815 teachers not worthy to teach in Borno

Governor Babagana Zulum, on Thursday, revealed that 3,815 teachers in Borno State have been found unworthy to teach.

“We have 3,815 teachers representing 22.1% of 17,229 teachers across the 27 LGAs that are not competent to teach and are not trainable,” Zulum said.

The governor described as “very scary” some findings submitted to him by a committee he had constituted.

Zulum said the committee members had informed him that they came across an NCE holder who could not write NCE during the test, yet teaching students.

The state’s Commissioner for Education, Engr. Lawan Abba Wakilbe, presented the committee’s report to Prof. Zulum at the Government House in Maiduguri.

The committee had engaged academics from different education stakeholders in the state before and during assessment tests conducted in January 2022, across the 27 Local Government Areas of the State.

The report revealed that out of 17,229 teachers across the 27 LGAs, only 5,439 representing 31.6% proved competent to teach, while 3,815 teachers representing 22.1% are not competent to teach and are not trainable.

The report, however, revealed that 7,975 teachers representing 46.3% were found not fully competent but trainable.

The report also revealed that 2,389 teachers representing 13.9% have been teaching without any formal qualification from any institution.

The governor is considering the transfer of the untrainable teachers to areas where they can perform other tasks such as tree planting at the Ministry of Environment.

According to the report, of all the 17,229 teachers, 1,627 representing 9.4% are degree holders; 8,153 representing 47.3% are NCE holders; 713 representing 4.1% are teachers grade II certificates’ holders while 2,281 representing 13.2% are SSCE/GCE holders with the remaining 2,389 representing 13.9% not having any formal certificate.

A breakdown of the report’s findings across the 27 Local Government Areas showed, from the worst indices, that out of 224 teachers in Abadam Local Government Area in northern Borno, only 14 are competent to teach, as 74 are untrainable while 136 can be trained.

The report further said out of Kala-Balge’s 272 teachers, only 21 are competent to teach with 118 untrainable and 133 trainable.

The report also showed indices for other local government areas from which Maiduguri Metropolitan Council had the highest number of 396 untrainable teachers, followed by Askira-Uba with 281 untrainable teachers, Chibok-268 untrainable teachers, Bama-246 untrainable teachers and Biu also with 219 teachers who cannot teach.

The numbers were based on the overall number of teachers as some with higher numbers of untrainable teachers have higher number of teachers employed.

Jere LGA has the fewest – 16 untrainable teachers out of 1,159 teachers from which 936 proved competent while 204 are not fully competent but they are trainable.

Speaking after receiving the report, Governor Zulum described the findings as “very scary”.

“We cannot move Borno forward unless we are able to sanitize our public schools system and if I am able to sanitize education, I would have achieved 50% of what I set out to achieve as governor,” Zulum said.

He noted that he decided to set up the assessment committee after series of spontaneous assessments of teachers during his regular unscheduled trips to Local Government Areas.

Despite the report, Governor Zulum assured that he will not sack the 3,815 untrainable teachers but he will, depending on the recommendations made by the committee, consider approving the transfer of the teachers to areas where they can perform other tasks such as tree planting at the Ministry of Environment.

Members of the committee including chairman of the state Universal Basic Education Board, Bulama Kagu, a professor of education, was in attendance

The assessment committee was tasked with conducting basic literacy and numeracy competency assessment of 17,229 Local Education Authority teachers across 27 Local Government Areas of the state.

TheStar