•Insists competency test lacks merit
John Shiklam
The Kaduna State Chapter of the Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT) has vowed to resist the sacking of 2,357 of its members, including the National President of the union.
They were sacked by the Kaduna state government for failing a competency test conducted in December 2021.
The Kaduna State Universal Basic Education (KASUBEB)
had in a statement on Sunday in Kaduna, disclosed that 2,192 primary school teachers failed the test conducted for over 30,000 teachers in December last year.
The statement issued by Hauwa Mohammed, an official of the board, said 165 were sacked for poor performances while others were sacked for failing to write the test.
However, the state chapter of the NUT, said the test lacked merit, maintaining that it was put together to deliberately sack teachers.
Speaking in a telephone interview yesterday, the chairman of the union, Ibrahim Dalhatu, vowed that the NUT would resist the injustice against its members.
He said there was a pending suit against conducting the test, arguing that KADSUBEB ought to have maintained the statuesque pending the decision of the court.
Dalhatu said the NUT took the decision that its members should not participate in the test after approaching the court.
He alleged that some people were recruited by KADSUBEB to write the test for some teachers.
Dalhatu also faulted the result of the test, alleging that names of some teachers who had retired two years ago were included among those who passed the test.
He said, from the beginning, KADSUBEB did not carry stakeholders along in the conduct of the test.
“From the initial stage when the state government wanted to conduct another competency test, stakeholders were not carried along. We only heard about it in the media, so we wrote a letter to SUBEB to find out whether what we read in the media was true.
“They confirmed that it was true and we asked them to involve the NUT in the conduct of the test, but the SUBEB Chairman and his management did not open up to us
“We took a position after consulting with the National Secretariat of the NUT not to participate in the competency test”, he said.
According to him, “The state government was interested in sacking teachers and we told them that if they want to sack teachers, they should do so without hiding under the pretext of competency text.
“We told them that they should do so without tarnishing the image of teachers.
“They insisted on conducting the test and we went to court to challenge it. They were served with the court process in November 2021, but they went ahead to conduct the test in December 2021.
“We told our members not to participate in the exercise and most of them did not participate.
“SUBEB hired some people to write the test for some teachers. That was how the test was conducted.
“So we don’t know those who wrote the test and those who did not write.”
The NUT chairman alleged further that, “After they released the result of the test, we saw that there are names of people who have retired two years ago whose names were among those who passed the test.”
He said the NUT held an emergency meeting yesterday on the matter, reiterating that the test was illegal and unacceptable.
He maintained that, “If KADSUBEB is law abiding, it should have waited for the court to determine the suit we filed.
“The test lack merits, because there are many issues involved, we will resist it. Initially they told us that the essence of the test was not to sack anybody, that it was for need assessment.”
KADSUBEB, in its statement had explained that test was conducted following resolutions of the state government on the need for continued assessment of teachers to ensure better delivery of learning outcomes for pupils.
In 2017, 21,780 teachers were sacked for failing the first competency test.
