By Beauty John, LAFIA
The chairman, Karu local government council, Mr Akala Samuel Gajere said that the council has commenced a capacity audit of public primary school teachers across the local government.
Mr Gajere told our correspondent in Lafia, Tuesday, that the decision to embark on the screening exercise came up, following his visits to some public primary schools in the local government before the lockdown.
“I took about three months to do an unscheduled supervision of schools, and visits to classrooms to see what teachers are doing.
“I can tell you, I am ashamed as a citizen of the local government first, and as the chairman of the local government,” he said.
He stated that the teachers have gone through biometric capturing, their documents and certificates have been scanned and will be sent to the various institutions they graduated from for authentication.
“Those authenticated, we are going to give them some level of examinations to write. Those that will make the percentage requirement to teach in our classrooms, we will retain them.
“Those of them who will not make it, we will take them to probably farms,” he said.
According to the chairman, to his dismay, some of the teachers could neither fill the forms they were provided nor speak English fluently.
“And then you wonder, if we are to talk of human capital development, where does it start? The foundation is the primary school.
“I am a product of a public primary school, and that is why I can’t take my eyes off the public primary school,” he added.
The chairman, who noted that some of the locals cannot afford to send their children to private schools, said that it is his responsibility to make sure the public schools are up to standard.
“I could have money to send my kids to private schools, but of course, because today I have taken up a responsibility of my community, a lot of our people don’t have money to send their children to private schools. Even if they do, why are we paying teacher ? We are paying them to work,” he said.
Mr Gajere lamented over the reactions of some of the residents of the local government, in regard to the development, adding that they feel the government is trying to take their jobs from them.
He assured that there are plans on ground to integrate the teachers into other fields more suitable for them if they do not pass the test.
The chairman who restated his commitment to improving the standard of education in the local government revealed that his administration has built and furnished over seven primary schools across the local government and provided 700 wooden desks to some public schools.
Mr Gajere commended the public for their continued support for his administration, urging them to be law abiding and to obey the COVID-19 safety guidelines so as to stay out of harms way.
Recall that recently, Governor Abdullahi Sule revealed his administration’s plan to retrain primary school teachers in the state, following the submission of a baseline survey conducted by the technical committee, headed by Professor Mohammed Isa Kida, which undertook a survey of 1391 primary schools across the 13 local government areas of the state.
Professor Kida disclosed that a large percentage of primary school teachers require training to be able to fit into the vision of the state government for education.
