IYC protests alleged lopsidedness in teachers’ recruitment, sue Akwa-Ibom govt

WORRIED by the alleged lopsided recruitment process of 1, 000 teachers into the Akwa Ibom State public secondary schools system, the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) has taken the State Secondary Education Board (SSEB) to court, lamenting that their kit and kin in the state have been shut out from the exercise.

Speaking with newsmen in Uyo last week Monday, the chairman in charge of SSEB, Dr Ekaette Ebong Okon, disclosed that she was under pressure from some local government areas, which were aggrieved that many candidates from their areas were not shortlisted for the appointment into the state teaching service.

She said: “I am currently being sued by the Ijaw Youths Council for not accommodating their people in the recruitment exercise. The people claimed that it wasn’t right for non-indigenes of Akwa Ibom State to be captured in the exercise.”

Dr Okon added that the riverside community of Ibeno, where the Ijaw fishermen had their base, had also sued the state government for allocating only six slots to their council.

“Ibeno Local Government Area has sued the state government for recruiting only six indigenes from the area out of over 278 applicants who applied for the teaching job,” she said.

Dr Okon gave the statistics of applicants for the teaching jobs from various Local Government Areas to include Abak, 1,956, Eastern Obolo 52, Eket 1,715, Esit Eket 621, Essien Udim, 2,511 and Etim Ekpo 1,474

Others were Etinan 1938, Ibeno 278, Ibesikpo 1835 Ibiono Ibom 2270 while Uyo local government had 4867 applicants, among others.

Okon recalled that Governor Udom Emmanuel had declared a state of emergency in the education sector in the state which involved addressing infrastructure deficit and recruitment of more hands in the public schools to achieve the completion agenda of the government in education.

“On November 25, 2020, after the board had made a tour of all the secondary schools in the state, I raised a memo to the governor on the state of secondary schools in the state and I was invited to the State Executive Council meeting to present the schools, where I asked for employment of more teachers into the public secondary schools, among other requests.

“The governor immediately constituted a six-man recruitment committee, chaired by the Head of Service in the state,” she stated.

She said advertisement was placed in the state-owned newspaper for the recruitment of the 1000 teachers but 47,102 applicants successfully applied online at the time the portal was closed.

“Over 47,102 candidates applied for the job across different spectrum of interests. We have citizens who applied from Anambra, Abia, Borno, Delta, Oyo and Rivers states respectively.

“After deleting the names of non-indigenes, multiple entries and other errors, the applicants were reduced to 45,285 while applicants with third-class and pass grades of degrees were also eliminated,” she explained.

“First class of first degrees were 201, second class Upper Division, 9041, second class Lower Division, 25,662, Masters degree holders,27, HND distinction, 401  while those with Lower Credits were completely knocked off.”

She said the Computer Based Test results were on-the-spot, but those who played pranks didn’t get their results on the spot.

“I was the only person from SSEB at the executive committee set up by the governor to recruit teachers into secondary schools in the state.”

She said the results were presented to the governor who signed the list page by page and sent it back the head of service who in turn handed them over to the board for letters of appointment to be issued to successful applicants.

Okon explained that deployment of those with teaching experiences was a different matter entirely and we’re not mixed up with the fresh appointment as speculated.

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