Leadership (Abuja)
Abdullahi Olesin
17 December 2008
Ilorin — About 17,000 unqualified teachers are in the employment of Niger State government, Governor Muazu Babangida Aliyu has disclosed.
According to the governor, of the 22,000 primary school in the state, only 7,000 have prerequisite qualifications to teacher while about 3000 out of 5,000 secondary school teachers are qualified.
The Chief Servant made this disclosures in an interview with newsmen in Ilorin Monday night, shortly after delivering the first distinguished personality lecture organised by the University of Ilorin, Centre for Peace and Strategic studies.
And just like the Kwara State scenario, Governor Aliyu said that the unqualified teachers would be made to undergo training and retraining, rather than be laid off.
"It would be counter- productive to lay them off because if we do this, the schools will be left without teachers."
"What we intend to do is to give the teachers necessary training at colleges of education and National Teachers Institute.
We have realised that the teachers problem is not peculiar to Kwara State alone but it is a national problem," the governor declared.
Governor Aliyu also disclosed plans by his administration to introduce free and compulsory education in the state.
"A committee has been set up to look into what we can do to have free and compulsory education in Niger State," he said.
On the much-talked about poverty level of the North, Governor Aliyu prescribed skills acquisition as the only antidote to the problem.
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