Shehu Sani-Othman, Permanent Member II of the State Universal Basic Education Board and member of the committee that conducted the controversial competency test for primary school teachers in Kaduna State, tells GODWIN ISENYO why 21,780 teachers, who failed the test, must be sacked
What is your view on the planned retrenchment of 21,780 teachers who failed the competency test conducted by the Kaduna State Government?
It is sad that our teachers failed an examination which we expected them to pass convincingly, 100 per cent. Unfortunately, the majority of them couldn’t even get 75 per cent. It is really sad! A teacher, who you think had passed his primary and secondary schools’ examinations; went through the National Certificate in Education programme for three years and yet failed what he taught his pupils in Primary Four. That is the reason the government had no option but to lay them off and recruit teachers who are more serious and capable of teaching in the schools
The teachers claim that the state government used the test as a ploy to replace them with loyalists of the el-Rufai administration ahead of the 2019 elections?
Did we sit for the test for them? Did we select them to come and sit for the test? The test was administered to all the teachers in general. So, I don’t know why anybody should link this to any sinister motive. These teachers were summoned in the state to take the test generally and we created centres throughout the state; each local government having at least two centres so that the teachers could find it easy to locate the centres and sit for the test. They took the test with clear supervision and invigilation. Fortunately, we adopted the conference marking system whereby the examiners came to the hall, queued up and collected the papers; they sat down while stakeholders as well as security operatives watched as they marked the papers. At the end of the day, we collated all the scripts and analysed them. The result was made known to the public. So, I don’t see any reason people should insinuate that the government has interest in doing away with those who are not loyal to it.
The Nigeria Union of Teachers and the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria said the government had no business organising the competency test. What do you think?
The NUT said the TRCN is the regulatory body to handle the test. Agreed, but they didn’t handle it 100 per cent. They have been part of the handling. What I mean is that a committee was established by Governor Nasir el-Rufai and chaired by the Secretary to the State Government. And it has as members the Head of Service of the state, some commissioners and all the labour unions. When I say all the labour unions, these include the TUC, NLC, NUT and the TRCN. All the deliberations were done in their presence. If we had allowed the TRCN to conduct the test, I want to believe that the failure would have been worse than this because TRCN, as a national organisation and internationally-recognised body, would have prepared a standard test for them and the questions would have been difficult for them to answer. This is just Primary Four examination and they couldn’t pass it — how much less a professional examination? I think the failure would have been worse than this. This is what I want people to understand. We can go back and allow the TRCN to conduct the test and I can assure you that the result would be worse. What would they say?
What is the agreed pass mark because the teachers claimed it was pegged at 60 per cent but the government changed it unilaterally to 75 per cent?
We did it because we believed that for one to have passed Primary One to Six, proceeded to secondary school to spend five or six years and went further to a higher institution, either to a college of education or the university, definitely, I don’t think there should be any reason why it shouldn’t be 100 per cent pass mark. The committee recommended 60 per cent as pass mark and we took it to the governor. In his passion for education and magnanimity, he then decided to take it to the State Executive Council for deliberation so that everybody would be in the picture of what was happening in the teaching profession at the primary school level and it was discussed there and they insisted that 95 per cent should be the pass mark and I think only one of them said 60 per cent should be the pass mark. Unanimously, they all insisted 95 per cent should be the pass mark because it was believed that it was a Primary Four exam. The governor’s verdict prevailed and from 95 per cent it was lowered to 75 per cent. The role of the committee was to recommend and it actually recommended 60 per cent as the pass mark. It is also his (governor) prerogative to increase it and that is why it was 75 per cent.
Do you think that the alleged mass failure was as a result of the neglect of the educational system in the state?
The past leaders never gave it any consideration and that is the more reason why you discovered that during budget presentation, the government usually offered chicken feed as the budget for education and at the end of the year, you discovered that little or nothing was done in the education sector. And again, our political elite are not helping matters. Do you know that politicians send thugs to go into teaching profession in the state? You may not believe that a political office holder in the state in the past had given notes to thugs to go into teaching appointment and one of the thugs raised his hand and said, ‘I have not been to school and I don’t know what I am going to teach.’ The response of the politician was ‘go and teach the children how to shout’. And that was how he enrolled as a teacher and has been collecting salaries monthly, even though he never knew how to write his names. The thug confessed to this. Yet they asked him to go and teach the children how to shout.
So, I think the decay was caused by our past leaders. Now that Kaduna State is lucky to have Mallam Nasir el-Rufai as our leader, honestly speaking, the unions that have been making a noise on the radio and television should come and bow down to the governor and thank him for waking them up to their responsibilities.
In fact, a lady once came to the Executive Secretary of the State Universal Basic Education Board, kneeling down to thank him for what the board had done. She said she learnt that the state was sacking teachers that could not teach their pupils. She told the chairman that her child in Primary Five could not read ‘A, B, C, to Z’ well. That is unfortunate. In Primary Five, a child ought to read newspapers but today, they can’t. Primary Six pupils cannot even write their names. That’s an unfortunate situation and we can’t allow this to continue. This required somebody with a big heart like the governor of Kaduna to tackle the problem. People may not see what he is doing now but I can tell you that in years to come, it will manifest.
Those opposing the sack are saying that the teachers should be given an opportunity to be retrained. Do you think sacking the teachers will solve the problem?
When the governor came on board in 2015, the first thing he did was to look at the training of teachers in the state. He released more than N300m to the State Universal Basic Education Board for training of teachers. This training started immediately. It reached a stage that we decided to go into the field at least to see the positive impact of the training. But unfortunately, we discovered that the situation was as it used to be before the coming of this administration. There wasn’t any impact on the teachers as a result of the training. We realised that the money spent by the government was like throwing cash into a river. And we had no option but to suspend the training.
There was an organisation called ESPN. They came into Nigeria and they picked Kaduna as one of its pilot states. They were assisting in giving these teachers on-the-field training. Unfortunately, there was no tangible or positive result on the performance of the teachers. Now, Teachers’ Development Programme is on the ground and it is doing its best in the training of teachers. But we told ourselves that we are wasting our time. The best thing is to go out into the field to test the teachers.
We took them out and showed them what we saw and they (TDP) had to suspend the training. After the test, we have identified those we don’t need in the classroom and we are doing away with them by February (2018) and we will employ qualified hands, who are already queuing up to apply for the job. Then the training continued. It’s going to be a continuous process and the training will be regular too.
In fact, sacking them (teachers) is the last option. You need to see the rigours of the training we gave these people. We did all we could. We employed the best lecturers from colleges of education, Gidan-waya and Zaria to assist us in training them. But the training has been going on and there is no impact. You can see that they could not even pass a Primary Four test. What kind of training do you expect us to give them again that would make any difference? I don’t think there is any training that we can give them. Training them is like wasting time, money and other resources. They are irredeemable!
Some have argued that a similar exercise was carried out in Kwara, Bauchi and Sokoto states and no teacher was fired but rather they redeployed those who failed to other agencies. Can’t Kaduna State do the same?
I believe that the majority of them who are being sent away may not even fit into another unit of the government because if you see their handwriting and the spelling mistakes they made during the competency test, there is no way you can employ them or transfer them to other units of the government. You can imagine that they couldn’t write legibly. You can imagine that a National Certificate of Education holder could not spell ‘triangle’ correctly. It’s unfortunate. So, sending them to other units of the government cannot be a good option. Most of them have spent many years so let them go and enjoy their pension and gratuity at home. And if they want to join another service, they are free to apply. And after all, we have given them the opportunity to re-apply.
But you said the teachers are not good enough to be in the employ of the government.
I mean those who feel that they can still make it, let them come and we will give them another exam. If they pass, we take them back into the classroom.
What is your response to the claim that many of the names on the list of those who took the test included dead people, security guards etc.?
We have heard that. People should come forward and substantiate their claims with facts. I am still challenging the claimants to bring forward names of those they claimed are dead or are security guards found on the list of those that passed or failed. Let them feel free and bring the names of the dead. We will investigate the claims. I am still using this opportunity to appeal to anybody with such names to come forward.
What’s the way out of this current problem?
The way out is that we should refrain from politicising education. We should not link education to religious bigotry. We should be fair to ourselves. Let us view education holistically. Education is too expensive for us to link it to politics. People insinuate all manner of things. It is very unfortunate. Let us have the feeling that government is doing the right thing and supporting them. What the government is doing is helping the common man getting what he should get. The common man is always crying for good education and this is the step to that dream. Since this government has come up to do this, let us support the government and get something positive.
|Punch
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