Niger discovers 20% of primary school teachers unqualified

In its quest to flush out charlatans in the state’s primary education board, the Niger State technical committee on teachers’ headcount has revealed that out of the 24,061 primary school teachers across the state 4,703 are unqualified.

Labaran Garba, the chairman of the committee made this known during the presentation of the committee’s report to Abubakar Sani Bello, the executive governor of Niger State in Minna, the state capital.

Garba in his speech during the presentation informed the governor that the state has a total of 3,135 public primary schools with 1,276 local government education administrative staff members with teaching qualifications.

According to the state technical committee chairman, at the secondary school level, the state has a total of 498 secondary schools with 6, 870 teachers of which 962 are unqualified.

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”One of the committee’s recommendations is to sustain teachers’ headcount after every three years for effective and efficient educational planning in the state,” he said.

Abubakar Sani Bello, the Niger State governor in his response assured all qualified teachers in the state of their dues.

“Based on the report there are 80 percent qualified teachers in the state which is commendable and encouraging.

“Let us identify our teachers and see how we can support them, our teachers are suffering. All necessary arrangements will be made to improve the welfare of the teachers to ensure quality education in public schools”

“For the over 4,000 unqualified teachers discovered by the committee, we should take them out, but we can also give them the option to be trained and come back,” he said.

The governor went on to encourage the implementation committee to carry out their functions without sentiments noting that attention should be given to areas where there are few schools so that they will get more and should be close to communities.