BY GBENGA ARIYIBI

ADO EKITI – Majority of teachers in Ekiti State yesterday  shunned the competency test organised by the state government as only a few of them showed up at the special designated centres

At the two centres in Ola Oluwa Muslim Grammar School, Ado Ekiti and African Church Comprehensive High School, Ikere Ekiti, none of the members of the Nigeria Union of Teachers, NUT, were seen at the centres, while only the executive members of the  Academic Staff Union of  Secondary  Schools, ASUSS, led by its chairman, Mr. Sola Adigun showed up.

The issue of competency test otherwise tagged Teachers Development Needs Assessment, TDNA,  has created a big gulf between the state government and the teachers, as the teachers had on two different occasions stayed away from the test.

Realising that government was bent in conducting the test the NUT instructed its members to stay away through radio announ- cements in Ado Ekiti

However, the position was later countered by ASUSS,  as its leadership had instructed its members to prepare to write the test through a text messages.

For instance, at Olaoluwa Muslims Grammar School, Ado Ekiti, where over 3,000 secondary school teachers were to converge for the examination, only 35 were present, while only 28 were seen writing the TDNA, about  3, 000 of them did not show up.

Reacting to the development, the state Commissioner for Education, Dr.  Eniola Ajayi, vowed that  the defiant teachers would regret their actions.

Her words: “They will surely  beg to write the examination…”

Also, the  state chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party, had described Fayemi’s hard posture on  TDNA, as a stumbling block  that would further affect the standard of education in the state negatively.