By Uchino Amatey: Agency Reports
The Cross River Government has said that it will soon release promotion letters to teachers for the years spanning 2009 to 2016.
The Executive Chairman of the State’s Universal Basic Education Board, Dr. Stephen Odey stated this Friday in Calabar during a chat with newsmen.
“This is a backlog of promotions from 2009 to 2016, which was inherited from previous administration. We took it upon ourselves to conduct promotion interview across the 18 local government areas and today on behalf of his Excellency, we are happy to announce that SUBEB will formally release teachers’ promotions,” Mr. Odey said.
He added that, “over ten thousand teachers are going to benefit from this exercise.”
Odey also disclosed the approval of the governor, Senator Ben Ayade for the recruitment of 2000 teachers and 500 security men to address the dearth of teachers in the basic education sector and beef up security in Primary schools.
The 2000 teachers will complement the existing workforce, Odey explained.
“From what we experienced when we conducted our personnel audit and our subsequent visits to schools when we go for monitoring and inspections, we discovered that some schools from primary one to six have two or three teachers, which is unacceptable.
“For us to have qualitative and quality education, teachers are very key. Since we came on board from October 2015 till now, we have recorded over a thousand retirement and death cases, so we needed to replace these teachers. So when I approached him on this, he graciously approved the recruitment of 2000 teachers and 500 security men,” Odey said.
He continued: “Recall that in 2016 when we got the approval to recruit 1000 teachers, we conducted aptitude test across the three senatorial districts of the State, but along the line we couldn’t release the results because of the poor financial status.
“So, we will give opportunities to those candidates that took the aptitude test, the results of those who scored 50 and above will be published soon. If they are not up to the two thousand we want to recruit then we can also consider others.”
Explaining further, the SUBEB boss averred that: “This is the first of its kind since the inception of SUBEB, that at a go we are going to recruit 2,500 persons. This is unprecedented, and we as a board want to thank his Excellency for listening to our cry so that we can improve the basic education sub sector. With this approval, 2,500 persons in Cross river state will be taken off street and will be gainfully employed. This is in line with this administration’s policy of providing food on the table of its citizens.”
He reiterated that SUBEB does not collect any fee for employment purposes or while discharging any of its functions, and further warned the general public to be weary of fraudulent elements who may try to defraud them in the name of SUBEB. He added that anyone who engages in this practice, if caught will be handed over to relevant security agencies.
The State Chairman of the Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT), Comrade Eyo-Nsa Itam who was in attendance, commended the state government for keeping to its promises.
According to him, “I am happy that one of the problems of teachers has been solved. I want to commend Governor Ayade for authorising the release of promotion letters which was one of the major aspects of our problems.
“Today he has shown his love once again for the teaching profession by this gesture. I also want to thank him for the regular payment of teachers salaries and for granting approval for the recruitment of 2000 teachers.
“For most of our schools the ratio of teachers to pupils is so low, but with this development the ratio will be normalized. Please extend our regards to him that we are fully in support of him,” Itam said.
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