50% of Kaduna teachers unqualified – Yakowa

By Emeka Mamah

KADUNA — Governor Patrick Yakowa of Kaduna State, yesterday, said about 50 percent of primary school teachers in the state were unqualified, adding that 2,000 of the teachers secured employment with forged certificates.

Yakowa spoke during the graduation and awards ceremony of the second joint National Teachers’ Institute, NTI, in Kaduna, yesterday.

He said: “The theme of the two-day summit, Enhancing Teacher Education: Quality and Professional Development, by NTI is not only timely but instructive, since it falls alongside the same aggressive effort we are currently making in Kaduna State in improving the quality of our teachers.

“Because we are convinced that the teacher is the key factor in any learning situation, we, therefore, associate ourselves with any effort to develop teacher’s quality.

He added that this was what guided the state government to evaluate primary school teachers and discovered that “nearly 50 percent” of them “lack the required qualifications to teach” even as “about 2,000 teachers had been employed with fake certificates.”

The governor further said the government also developed a blue-print aimed at addressing teacher- quality through capacity building, infrastructural development, increasing access and provision of facilities, new quality assurance system and the development of tertiary institutions owned by the state government.

According to him, the development of the roadmap had “paved the way for us to revamp the sector and improve the system beyond what was on ground.”

He said: “Funds have been injected into the sector for various projects, which include expansion and rehabilitation of government schools and libraries in the three senatorial zones, building of classrooms, supply of science equipment and furniture for use by public schools.”