A recent headcount of teachers in Niger state has revealed that 5,665 of the 30,931 primary and secondary school teachers in the state have no basic professional teachers’ qualifications.
The report of the committee on head count of teachers in public schools in Niger revealed yesterday in Minna that by implication about 20 percent of the teachers are not qualified to teach.
In the report presented by the chairman of the technical committee on the teachers headcount, comrade Labaran Garba explained that there are 3,135 primary schools across the state with a total of 24, 061 teachers out of which 19, 358 are qualified teachers, while 4,703 are unqualified.
Similarly, comrade Garba said from the findings of the committee, the state has 498 secondary schools with 6, 870 teachers of which 962 are unqualified.
He disclosed that there were 2,406 local government education administrative staff where 1,276 have teaching qualifications while 1,130 do not have teaching qualifications.
Garba said in view of the development the committee recommended a sustained teachers’ head count every three years for effective and efficient educational planning in the state.
The state governor Abubakar Sani Bello who received the report assured all qualified teachers in the state of their dues even as he will encourage the unqualified teachers to get the basic qualifications or be shown the way out.
He said from the report he received there are 80 percent qualified teachers in the state which he said is commendable and encouraging adding that all necessary arrangements will be made to improve the welfare of the teachers so as to ensure quality education in public schools.
“Let us identify our teachers and see how we can support them, our teachers are suffering”, he said, directing the secretary to the state government to set up an implementation committee on the findings made by the committee.
He said the unqualified teachers discovered by the committee would be given the opportunity to become professional teachers by going back to school saying that “the number of unqualified teachers is high, over 4,000. We should take them out but we can also give them the option to be trained and come back.”
