Oshiomhole Invites 1,300 Teachers For Certificate Screening

Edo State Government has invited 1,300 Primary School teachers who have irregularities in their education certificates and age records to appear before a verification committee to defend their certificates.

The state Governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole made this known in a meeting held with the leadership of the state Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) led by Comrade Emmanue Ademokun and the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) led by Comrade Patrick Ikosimi.

The Edo State branch of the Nigerian Union of Teachers had in a letter declined to attend the screening of the indicted teachers because they had not been paid amongst other reasons.

The Governor who said that the exercise is not to witch-hunt anybody however insisted that it would not be business as usual and that those who have become too old to teach will have to give way.

Eventually the unions consented to the screening and the state Government approved that it will be decentralized to make it easy for the teachers to attend the screening exercise.

The meeting with the teachers and civil society was a follow up of the town hall meeting held last week following findings of alleged falsification of age by 1,300 teachers in the state.

The governor also approved the payment of salaries to primary school teachers withheld as a result of the recent strike in the state on the condition that they make up for the time lost in the strike.

The Edo State NLC Chairman Emmanuel Ademokun who noted that some of those indicted by the findings of the computer were young teachers who may not want to retire early appealed to Governor to retain them after the exercise.

The Governor promised that another meeting will be called to discuss the findings of the screening exercise.

It will be recalled that the Governor had at a Town Hall meeting on Education in the state on July 31 said an audit carried out by the State’s Information and Communications Technology unit showed that 789 teachers out of 1,379 obtained their Primary School Leaving Certificates before the age of 8 or 9.

He said at the meeting that “some of the records show there were a few who were particularly gifted and they finished Primary School before they were born.

“We found that of all our Primary School Teachers, only 1,287 representing 9% out of 14,484 teachers have proper and accurate records in our system.  91% have various forms of discrepancies in their records.

He said further “about 1,379 teachers representing 11.5% claim that they obtained their Primary School Certificates after they had been employed as teachers.  In fact, some obtained their Primary School Certificates not more than two years ago, from the school in which they were employed as teachers.”