The socioeconomic state of terror-ravaged Borno State took precedence when Governor Babagana Zulum was faced with the difficult task of determining the fate of 11,790 unqualified Local Education Authority (LEA) teachers across a state where the educational sector was the most-battered by about 13 years of global-scale Boko Haram terror, Tellwell Newspaper gathered.
Governor Zulum
The report of a committee set up by the state government to assess the qualifications of 17,229 LEA Local teachers across Borno’s 27 Local Government Areas, showed that 11,790 of them were unqualified.
The setting up of the committee, under the State’s Commissioner of Education, Engr. Lawan Abba Wakilbe, which submitted the report on 17th February, 2022, was sequel to a report by the International Center for Investigative Reporting (ICIR) were receiving less than N11,000 as monthly salary.
The committee found that out of 17,229 existing LEA teachers, a total of 11,790 representing 69% of the entire LEA teachers, were found unqualified to teach; 2,389 of them had no academic qualification whatsoever, not even secondary school certificates, while 3,815 of them were found to be untrainable.
Showing only 5,439 teachers (31.6%) qualified to teach, out of the 17,229 teachers assessed by the Committee, Gov. Zulum, who described the report as scary, came face-to-face with the difficult option of sacking the 11,790 unqualified teachers.
According to his spokesman, Isa Gusau, Gov Zulum had to resist the urge to sack them, considering the stark reality of the devastated state where sacking 11,790 teachers would immediately imply pushing them into a massive terrorised population, compounding the socioeconomic predicaments of the state.
Gusau said Zulum, taking a Compassionate decision to avoid increasing unemployment in the state, therefore declared that none of the 11,790 unqualified teachers would be sacked.
Instead, Government identified a number of them that could be trained while others were to be assigned to work in sectors that could include planting of trees at the Ministry of Environment.
Based on the Committee’s report, Governor Zulum directed that the minimum wage should immediately be applied for the 5,439 teachers found to be qualified to teach.
Consequently, Engr. Wakilbe, according to Gusau, recently led officials of the Ministry of Education to a meeting with the State’s Ministry of Local Government and Emirate Affairs, at which national minimum wage was agreed to be applied for the 5,439 qualified teachers in-line with Governor Zulum’s directive, Gusau further explained.
