In a shocking revelation, the executive secretary of the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), Dr Hamid Bobboyi, says there are some government-owned primary schools, especially in the northern part of the country, with only one teacher in the entire school.
According to the UBEC chief, three states are actually in this situation, with about 10 percent of their primary schools operating with only one teacher – who is both the headteacher and the class teacher for all the pupils from Primary One to Six.
Dr Bobboyi said he would, however, not want to mention the states concerned to avoid politicians making an issue out of it.
He lamented that the situation is so bad that almost all public basic schools across the states of the federation suffer from the inadequacy of teachers.
Bobboyi also expressed pains that despite huge sacrifices Nigerian teachers are making in imparting knowledge and skills to produce future leaders, they are poorly remunerated.
The UBEC chief made the remarks at a recent interactive session with the beneficiaries of the 2020/2021 Federal Teachers’ Scheme (FTS) project in Lagos State, their headteachers, UBEC monitoring team and the executive chairman of the Lagos State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB), Mr. WahabAlawiye-King, among others.
The FTS intervention programme was established by the Federal Government in 2006 to assist states address the shortage of teachers at the basic education level.
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Speaking further, Bobboyicommended the efforts of teachers generally and those in FTS project, which he gave their current total number nationwide to be 3,926 and out of which Lagos State has 102 enrollees.
He enjoined various state and local governments to look inward and invest significantly in their basic education, particularly in the area of recruitment of more competent teachers and retraining them to be able to produce well-rounded pupils.
He pledged that UBEC as an intervention agency would continue to give financial support when and where necessary.
In his welcome address, the executive chairman of Lagos SUBEB, Mr Wahab Alawiye-King, said Lagos State is passionate about providing quality and quantitative education not only at the basic level but at all levels.
He said that was why the state government is coming up with different programmes, among which he listed the EKO Excel, Zero Project, Living no Child Behind, among others.
The SUBEC chair commended UBEC for always giving support to the state towards making the state’s basic education a model for other states to follow.
In their separate remarks, the beneficiaries, who earn N30,000 monthly as a salary, said they would be happy if the state government could retain them as permanent staff rather than being laid off after the expiration of their two-year service as applicable to the scheme.
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