The Plateau State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) on Tuesday sacked 2,000 Grade II teachers on its payroll.
The Chairman of the board, Mrs Lyop Mang, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Jos that the affected teachers failed to upgrade their certificates to National Certificate of Education (NCE).
“They had to go because they failed to upgrade their certificates to National Certificate of Education (NCE), being the minimum requirement for teachers in primary school nationwide.
“The were among the 7,000 teachers that were asked to improve upon their status, but failed to do so five years after they were given the opportunity.
“Government had made up its mind to do away with them. More teachers would follow, as investigation is ongoing to fish out all unqualified teachers from schools”, she said.
The SUBEB boss also disclosed that recent investigation by the board revealed that some teachers were suspected to be involved in certificate forgery.
“Our investigation revealed that out of 1,299 teachers who claimed to be graduates of the College of Education, Gindiri, only eight of them were found to be on the graduate list.
“This means that 1,291 of them had no business whatsoever with the college,’’ she said.
The chairman told NAN that the board had commenced recruitment to fill vacant teaching positions in the state.
She said the board had already conducted written examination for 6,066 applicants out of which 3,058 had passed the second stage of interview.
According to her, the number to be employed would be determined by the number of teachers that would be laid-off eventually.
Other determinants are total number of pupils in every school, the total number of classrooms, as well as the total number of teachers on ground.
“We have directed all the Education Secretaries in the 17 Local Government Councils to provide us with these data”, she said.
The Plateau Government had in June threatened to sack 11,000 unqualified teachers on its payroll.
Gov. Jonah Jang, who made the pronouncement in Jos, said “government cannot continue to harbour people who cannot add value to education in the state.”
