NUT Okays Competency Test For 10,000 Teachers In Jigawa
By: Ahmed Aminu, Dutse
Jigawa State Government has concluded arrangements to conduct competency test for 10,000 to determine their suitability as teachers.
The Executive Chairman of the state Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB), Professor Haruna Musa, who made this known to newsmen on Thursday in Dutse, said the Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT), has backed the plan.
He said that the board would conduct Computer Base Assessment Test (CBT) for the 10,000 teachers, just as it has voted N500 million for training and retraining of primary and junior secondary school teachers in the state.
He said the state Governor, Umar Namadi, has introduced various reforms to curb teaching and learning poverty and other challenges affecting the quality of education in the state.
“We have employed several initiatives that will address learning poverty in the state, while the state is making efforts to ensure that teachers that are not going to school to teach go back to classrooms, at the same time, we are working to improve the quality of teachers.”
“The board has intimated and sought the approval of the Jigawa state House of Assembly, which welcomed the idea and gave us the go ahead on the plans to conduct the CBT.
Professor Haruna assured that that the exercise is not aimed at punishing, sacking or creating inconvenience for teachers but at improving their quality and skills.
“Im happy to informed you that the board had briefed the state House of Assembly through the house Committee on Universal Basic Education. They welcomed the idea and give us approval and go ahead.
“We also informed the Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT) and they were satisfied with the idea and endorsed it.”
On the retraining programme, the SUBEB chairman said they had already categorized the teachers into three groups and each would be trained based on identified deficiencies in order to improve their skills.
He said: “The state government is seriously disturbed on the matter as such it has become imperative to introduce the program to enable our teachers compete with their counterparts in other states.”
On absentee teachers, Professor Haruna said they had taken appropriate measures to deal with such teachers.
The SUBEB chairman disclosed plans to 3000 additional teachers through the government’s J-Teach programme, to compliment the existing 17,900 teachers across primary and junior secondary schools in the state.
