Some state govs haven’t recruited new teachers in 10 years — NUT

THE Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) has said some state governors are playing politics with education, saying it is the reason states under such governors have not recruited new teachers in 10 years.

Secretary-General of NUT, Dr Mike Ene, made this declaration in an interview with the Nigerian Tribune while commenting on a report  by the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) that Nigeria had a shortfall of 277, 537 teachers at the basic level in both public and private schools nationwide.

He said the statistics by UBEC would have been higher if the various unapproved primary schools spread across the country were factored in the calculation.

According to him, “if unapproved schools were to be considered in the survey, the shortfall would have been more than 300, 000.”

He said the situation was simply because many state governments did not give the deserved priority to education.

He said the ratio of most Nigerian teachers to students is one to 80 or more, whereas the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) standard is one teacher to about 25 students.

According to him, there were some schools with only two teachers—the head teacher and a class teacher in the entire school for 100 or more students.

He added that in such schools pupils in the junior classes are lumped and taught by a teacher, while those in the senior classes would be asked to be singing or doing unscheduled assignments.

He added that such task was then repeated vice versa subsequently.

Dr Ene said Nigerian teachers were really overwhelmed with work, and called on the various state governments to, as a matter of priority, recruit more teachers in their schools for the sake of quality education and economic prosperity.

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