…alleges misappropriation of govt funds on training

BY FAVOUR NNABUGWU

ABUJA-The Minister of State for Education, Ezenwo Nyesom Wike, yesterday, lambasted National Teachers Institute, NTI, for using unconducive centres for training teachers.

Wike also raised fears that the N18.2 billion said to have been spent by the NTI over a period of six years for its operation must have been either misapplied or misappropriated.

Wike who presided over the opening of a three-day Federal Ministry of Education, Millennium Development Goals Task Force Implementation Status meeting in Abuja, berated the NTI over the trauma student- teachers were made to go through during training, saying that the  centres where such training took place were not conducive for learning.

He particularly condemned the centres being used in Sapele, Delta State and some areas in Rivers State.

Dr Dele Yahaya of NTI had said, the institute expended N18.2 billion between 2006 and 2011 on the re-training of teachers, pointing out that it was enough to improve the quality of teachers in public schools.

He added that the NTI would train 125,000 teachers across the country this year as parts of its activities to improve the quality of teachers in public schools.

But the Minister countered that the major problem bedeviling government’s efforts at improving the quality of teachers in public schools was misuse of funds and challenged the NTI to visit schools being used as training centres for teachers across the country for which such huge amount of money was being spent.

The minister said: ”I am not an office person, I am a field person. Let me not expose certain things and I urge you that this year’s training should not just be about opening it in Abuja because  that will not solve the problem. We will make sure that we at least visit each of the states to see the centres.

”Government has always provided the fund, but the problem is the utilisation and justification for the funds.”