When Edo State Governor Adams Oshiomhole ordered a probe of primary school teachers, he never thought that anything would come out of the exercise. But there have been startling revelations from the probe, provoking calls for a similar exercise in the civil service. Osagie Otabor reports.
ONCE upon a time, teachers were held in awe. They were perceived to be above aboard and many parents prayed that their children would be like teachers. It was unheard of that teachers were involved in dirty deals. These days, such values are no longer cherished by the modern day teacher who tends to abuse his position to make money and even aids and abets examination malpratice. In Edo State, over 1,300 are being probed for allegedly falsifying their ages.
The outcome of the investigation by the committee headed by Hajiya Nana Audu, Permanent Secretary, Edo State Post Primary Education Board will determine their fate.
Genesis of the crisis
Since Edo State Governor Comrade Adams Oshiomhole ordered teachers and other civil servants to submit their First School Leaving Certificates and other credentials for verification, there has been tension in the public service.
The exercise followed alleged illegal diversion of salaries of retired and dead teachers by the Ministry of Education and the State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) and the employment of unqualified teachers. Oshiomhole said he was worried that after teachers’ salaries, local governments had little left for other things.
At the Edo State Education Summit held on July 31 at the Imaguero College Hall in Benin, Oshiomhole referred to the exercise, saying it had uncovered age falsification and other discrepancies.
Many of the primary school leaving certificates examined showed that some of the teachers could not have been born when they claimed to have completed their primary education, he said, adding: “Records show few were gifted; that some finished primary school before they were born. Unknown to many of us, some of their pregnant mothers had schools inside their system. Only 1,287 representing nine per cent have proper and accurate records in our system. Ninety-one per cent have various forms of discrepancies in their records. This does not mean they are not qualified but that there were problems with documentation and record keeping at the time of their employment.
“It will interest you to know that about 1,379 teachers claimed they obtained primary school leaving certificates after they have been employed as teachers. In fact some of them got the certificates from the school they have been teaching not more than two years ago.”
The unfolding drama
Many teachers disagreed with Oshiomhole’s conclusion at the summit. Chairman of the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT), Edo State Wing Patrick Ikosimi wondered why the governor was trying to humiliate teachers. He said the teachers were not consulted, adding no audit was done to confirm the figures presented to the governor by the Information and Communication Technology Unit. Primary school certificate, he said, was not a prerequisite for teachers’ employment.
He said teachers should not be blamed for local governments’ ineptitude, noting: “We don’t know why teachers will be the point of focus. Teachers are always the whipping child. It is the duty of the government to recruit teachers. Teachers don’t employ themselves. They don’t take part in illegal employment. Government agencies help them.”
Ikosimi had a second thought when he attended a session of the Hajiya Audu-led panel last week. He was shocked when Mrs. Augusta Odemwinge, a teacher at Asologun Primary School, Ikpoba Okha Local Government Area, could not read a sworn affidavit she had tendered as part of her credentials.
In an interview with The Nation, Ikosimi said Mrs Odemwinge’s case was so surprising that he and others wondered whether it was not a set-up.
He said: “For a teacher who has been in the system for that length to have been found not able to read is an embarrassment. It is a great embarrassment and a disgrace to the profession. Today, we are still questioning if that woman was appointed as a teacher. We don’t know if she was appointed as a non-teaching staff and later upgraded to a teacher. I am bewildered that we can have such a person as a teacher that cannot read an affidavit. It is an embarrassment to us. I have been receiving calls whether it was a set-up.”
Many teachers that faced the panel were proven to have falsified their ages. One of them was born in 1965. In a bid to elongate her service after she was employed as a teacher in a public primary school, she swore to an affidavit that she was born in 1970. During screenings, she would present the sworn age affidavit until nemesis caught up with her.
Mercy, who was in tears shortly after she appeared before the panel, said she reduced her age because she would not have spent up to 20 years in service by the time she would be due for retirement.
Young teachers recruited between two and five years ago, too were caught in the web. A teacher, who gave her name as Mary, said she removed only two years from her age, adding that it did not tally with her primary school certificate.
Age falsification, she said, was common among workers in the country and as such teachers should not be made scape goats.
Reactions and Findings
Amid shock and disbelief over these discoveries, many educationists are praising Oshiomhole for initiating the exercise.
On what the exercise portends for public schools, a teacher, Amedu Christopher, said cleansing the rot in the education sector rests on the credibility of those conducting the screening and recruitment of teachers.
“Look at the people here. They are both the young and old. In this country, there is the problem of corruption at all levels especially during recruitment of teachers. Those responsible know what they are after. They should come out with a report to sanitise the whole exercise,” he said.
Another teacher at Obaretin Primary School, who gave his name as Omoruyi, said the screening would make teachers take their job seriously, adding that it should be extended to civil servants.
He said: “It will bring sanity to teaching and the education sector as regards to primary schools. It will make teachers to go back and sit up. Looking at the way that teachers did, we really need to go back and study hard to know that we are not teaching subjects but pupils.
“Those responsible for recruitment should be blamed. When it is time for recruitment of teachers, those not qualified to teach are employed. The qualified don’t have anybody to push them forward. I will blame those in charge of the recruitment.”
Rights activist Kola Edokpayi supported the screening, saying it would help sanitise the education system. He said: “It is very clear that there are many teachers with forged certificates. A lot of them cannot write or read. With these, it will make us to know the wrong teachers and make sure only those who are capable are in the classroom. What do they have to impart in our children? We are happy with what is happening. We should extend this to other ministries and make it general.
“It is sad to discover that a teacher cannot spell what she was asked to read. She might have been intimidated as a result of the presence of the governor. Maybe it was the governor’s presence that gave her the phobia but it is not too good for the system.”
Another teacher, Yakubu Idris said the screening should be extended to secondary and tertiary schools.
Ikosimi said the union would investigate if the teacher that could not read was actually a teacher and traced the recruitment of substandard teachers to 2007 when the local government employed about 400 teachers.
He said: “The council chairmen drew the list of those to be employed. They wanted to satisfy those that assisted them to office. Instead of employing qualified teachers, majority of those employed were untrained teachers. They were employed as non-teaching staff and posted to schools in large numbers. These people later went to obtain National Certificate of Education (NCE) and came out to say they are now qualified teachers without interview or investigation to check whether they are qualified to go to the classroom. They promoted them en masse from grade level 4 to grade level 7. How are we sure of their ability to perform.”
Rather than sack, he said the government should move some of the teachers to fill the needs in secondary schools as many of them were qualified.
“There is a dearth of teachers at the junior and senior secondary schools. Many graduate teachers at the primary schools are willing to move up,” he said.
The NUT chair also urged the government to overlook the age falsification by younger teachers and consider their competence in keeping them on its payroll.
“You can see many underage and young people. Majority are those who got appointment about four years ago. Must we weed them out based on the age adjustment? Let us correct the age and look at competence of the teachers so that we don’t just weed out every capable hand in the system. There is hardly anybody that has not doctored his age. It is not actually intended to punish people, areas where correction can be made should be made.”
Ikosimi said the union does not condone indolence, urging the government to enforce monitoring in schools.
“There is no way we will allow incompetent teachers. Let them intensify supervisory division for them to go out and check these inadequacies,” he said.
