Governor Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa State has revealed that more than half of the 4,200 teachers illegally employed by the former leadership of the Teachers’ Service Commission (TSC) are not qualified to teach in the state’s schools.
Speaking on Monday during the swearing-in ceremony of a special adviser and 18 development area administrators in Lafia, the governor expressed deep concern over the recruitment irregularities carried out by the sacked TSC chairman and members.
Governor Sule recounted that his administration initially approved the recruitment of 1,000 teachers for the state’s secondary schools. However, the previous TSC leadership exceeded that mandate by employing over 4,200 individuals.
To ensure quality in the education sector, the state government contracted a consultant to screen those issued employment letters. The assessment revealed a major gap in qualification among the newly recruited teachers.
“We discovered that out of the 4,200 people screened, over 50 percent of them are not qualified to be teachers,” Governor Sule disclosed.
He further noted that despite lowering the pass mark from 60 to 50 percent during the screening process to accommodate more candidates, the state still struggled to find enough qualified teachers to meet the original target.
“I thank the people of Nasarawa State for their patience during this period. But I am sad to announce to you that by the time we carried out all the rigorous screening and tests, even lowering the pass mark from 60 to 50 percent, we still don’t have 1,000 teachers yet,” he said.
The governor explained that due to the shortage of qualified candidates, his administration had to lower the pass mark again in order to employ 1,500 teachers. These selected individuals, he said, would undergo extensive training to improve their teaching capabilities.
“Over 50 percent of the people that we thought we are employing are not qualified to be teachers,” he emphasized.
Governor Sule made it clear that his government would not compromise the state’s educational standards by hiring unqualified individuals.
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“We can not afford to, at the level of our standards of education, bring just any kind of person to be a teacher. We will employ more teachers but we must go through rigorous exercise to ensure we have the right people to chaperon our education,” he concluded.