Borno: Sacking 10,566 Unqualified Teachers Will Compound Unemployment

•Zulum approves N1bn for training

Abdurrahman Ahmed Bundi

The Borno State Government has refused to sack the 10,566 teachers said to be unqualified to remain in the classrooms, because the government did not want to compound the rate of unemployment in the state, report has stated.

This was as Governor Babagana Zulum, has approved the sum of N1 billion for the training of some 6,227 teachers certified as fit for training that would enable them to obtain the required qualifications before returning to the classrooms.

Long before the administration of Zulum, Borno was faced with the crisis of teachers’ recruitment and remuneration.

Some of the issues surrounding primary school education in Borno were complex, including the decision by Zulum to retain those that were confirmed to be unqualified and the concern about their salaries.

But a lot of people were angry and queried why a state governed by a professor of repute would have teachers still receiving paltry sums as salary.

However, in 2020, the administration sought to sanitise the  primary education system to ensure that quality education was imparted, following the devastation caused by Boko Haram insurgency.

Zulum constituted a committee headed by Dr. Shettima Kullima to determine the actual workforce of teachers and their competence to impart quality education.

According to the 2020 report, a list of 26,450 teachers and non-teaching staff was submitted before the verification committee, and among them, 18,451 teachers participated, while 2,628 with fake certificates were identified.

Zulum then constituted another committee in February 2022, headed by the current Commissioner for Education, Abba Wakilbe, to conduct a competency test on basic literacy and numeracy for the teachers, who had been cleared for biometric capture.

The committee’s report confirmed that about 10,566 teachers out of 15,823, representing 66% of all Borno primary school teachers, failed the test and were not qualified to teach.

More so, 6,227 teachers were identified to be trainable, and 4,339 of them untrainable.

Upon receiving the report, Zulum directed that the 5,257 who passed the test be upgraded and start to receive N30,000 as minimum wage.

The government further decided to retain those confirmed to be unqualified, because in a state like Borno that was coming out of the insurgency, sacking such number would further compound the rate of unemployment.