Gov el-Rufai Retreats, Proposes Fresh Test For Fired Teachers

BY SEGUN ADEBAYO, ABUJA – Hope of re-engagement is rising for the 22,000 primary school teachers sacked by the Kaduna State Government with the planned conduct of tests that will re-admit them into the system.

A top official in the Ministry of Education confided in Forefront that the state government may have backpedaled on its earlier hard stance due to emerging challenges within the education sector.  

According to the official, the planned test is meant to re-engage most of the teachers sacked last year based on their alleged inability to score the required cut-off marks.

“In the weeks ahead, there will be series of test in various zones for those sacked teachers who are interested in returning to the service. We have started in Kaduna zone and other centres will follow in the weeks ahead.

“Having discovered that the sacking of the so-called unqualified teachers has not helped matters, the engagement of new teachers has equally not helped in bringing quality teachers to the primary schools.

“It is obvious that the state cannot pay the terminal benefits of those sacked. With these teachers out in the cold and with no hope of receiving their terminal benefits, the government thought it wise to re-engage them after writing the test”, said the official who is not allowed to speak to the media.

Also, an official of the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN), involved in the process that led to the initial tests, hinted that the initial pass mark agreed by the team was 6o percent and not 75 percent as flaunted by the Kaduna State government.

“Some of us involved in the process were really shocked when the government insisted on 75 percent as the pass mark. I think the idea behind the test was noble, but politics was allowed to spoil the exercise.

“I think the government got it wrong and that is why the primary schools are comatose, in terms of getting qualified manpower,” the official said