The Executive Secretary of the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), Dr Hamid Bobboyi has made a shocking revelation on Friday in Lagos that there are some government primary schools, particularly in the northern part of the country that has only one teacher in the entire school.
He said three states according to findings are actually in that situation with about 10 per cent of their primary schools operating with only one teacher, who is the Headteacher and also a class teacher for all the pupils from Primary One to Six.
He said while he would not want to mention the states concerned to avoid politicians making issues out of it, he added that other teachers felt neglected and left to look for means of survival elsewhere.
He said the situation was that bad in some states even as almost all public basic schools across the states of the federation (though some states fared better than others) have not enough teachers in their schools.
He said that was why he always feels bad that despite huge sacrifices Nigerian teachers are making in imparting knowledge and skills to produce future leaders, they are poorly remunerated.
Bobboyi gave this explanation at an interactive session with the beneficiaries of the 2020\2021 Federal Teachers Scheme (FTS) project in Lagos State, and their headteachers, UBEC monitoring team and the Executive Secretary of the Lagos State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB), Mr Wahab Alawiye-King, among others.
The FTS intervention programme was established by the Federal Government in 2006 to assist states to address the shortage of teachers at the basic education level.
Speaking further, while commending the efforts of teachers generally and those in the FTS project which he gave their current total number nationwide to be 3, 926 and out of which Lagos State has 102 enrollees, UBEC boss said all he could add again is for various state and local governments to look inward and invest significantly in their basic education and particularly in the area of recruitment of more competent teachers and retraining them to be able to produce well-rounded pupils while UBEC as an intervention agency would continue to give financial supports when and where necessary.
In his welcome address, the Executive Chairman of Lagos SUBEB, Mr Wahab Alawiye-king said Lagos State is so passionate about providing quality and quantitative education not only at basic but at all levels for the people of the state.
He said that was why the state government is coming up with different programmes, listing EKO Excel, Zero Project, Living no child behind, at a basic level, among others as references.
He, however, commended UBEC for always giving support to the state and encouragement to make the state’s basic education a model for other states to follow.
While noting that the contributions of FTS teachers in the state are huge and commendable, he said the state government is always placing the beneficiaries of the scheme in the employment priority list during general teachers’ recruitment by the state government.
In their separate remarks, the beneficiaries, who earn N30, 000 monthly as 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 regime as applicable to the scheme.
They said they were not only trained teachers in schools; they have also been restrained by the state government alongside their counterparts who are permanent teachers and they are proficient at work.
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