Kaduna Teachers as a Case Study

It was disturbing to read in the week that about 21,780 out of 33,000 teachers in Kaduna State failed the primary four examination administered to test their competence by the state government. This, of course, has forced the state government to be shopping for 25,000 new teachers in a bid to restore quality to education.

Governor Nasir el-Rufai of the state spoke about the planned recruitment when he received a World Bank delegation in the state last Monday, saying after testing 33,000 primary school teachers with primary four examination, 66 per cent of them failed to get the requirements. That is pathetic.

The cancer militating against the education standard in the country is heavily reflected here. This, however, is not peculiar to Kaduna State but in almost all the states of the federation.

When former Ekiti State governor, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, was in office, he came up with a test assessment idea for teachers as part of moves to improve the education standard in the state. But the teachers bluntly rejected it and that became the starting point for the brushes that would later come between him and the civil servants in the state.
Not long ago, the immediate past Edo State governor, Adams Oshiomhole, did a random test for some teachers in the state while in office and a few of them could not read. The video of a particular teacher from that experience went viral on the social media and forced the governor to act in the interest of the kids.

In the same breath, when former Rivers State governor, Rotimi Amaechi, was in office, and there was to be a reading to some of the students in the state by the Best of Nollywood, which had planned to hold its award in the state that year, a random test for some of the teachers also elicited huge disappointment.

This cannot go on. Assessment test for teachers is now sacrosanct and must be held so. Governors must come together and salvage the educational system, especially at the primary level. It is also important to say that the various labour unions are a major contributor to the mess in the education sector. Rather than see the sense in the assessment initiative, they are always quick to queue behind their people and chant “we no go gree”. We cannot run a country like, especially the education sector.