Nasarawa State Governor Abdullahi Sule, stated that about 80 percent of the illegally recruited secondary school teachers in Nasarawa State cannot write an acceptance letter.

He vowed that his administration would not absorb those illegally employed by the Teachers’ Service Commission (TSC), which he recently suspended, and ordered a thorough investigation into the illegal recruitment.

Governor Sule made this known yesterday when he hosted a coalition of denominations under the aegis of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) on a thank-you visit at the Government House.

In response to the request by the Nasarawa State Chairman of CAN, the Very Reverend Dr. Sunday Emma, for his administration to absorb all those illegally employed by the TSC, the Governor stated that this would not be possible because most of them lack the requisite qualifications to teach.

“You are asking me to absorb them. Reverend, look at it two ways. I am not saying that I want to cause some people problems. I was told some of these people who paid money are not even qualified to teach. I was told some of them have given as much as 700, 600 thousand naira. These are people who would be paid less than 100, 000.

“I was told 80 percent of them could not even write acceptance letters. If you are the Governor Sir, and you are being told all these. If we are helping them, we are not helping our educational system. That means we can completely forget about our desire to reform the educational system,” he stated.

He explained that on coming into office in 2019, he commissioned some educationists to carry out a baseline survey of schools across the state after which they reported on the deplorable condition of the educational sector of the state.

“They came back and said they needed buildings, we have done that, they needed curriculum we have done that, amongst others. They also said we needed teachers. They said let us start with 1000 teachers. So we approved the employment of 1000 teachers,” he said.

He added that he gave approval for the TSC to recruit only 1000 teachers but they went ahead to employ more than 1000 additional teachers.

“They brought to me among the 1000, 50 slots because they know there are a lot of people that would approach me to ask for slots. I said no, don’t give me any fifty. Go ahead and employ all of them based on merit. I don’t even have a single slot. The reason is that our educational system in the state is grossly decayed and we need to bring it up. If we don’t have qualified teachers if we employ teachers based on this-one-knows-this-one, we may not have the kind of good teachers that we are looking for,” he said.

Governor Sule decried the fact that most of those employed by the TSC even refused to be posted out to the hinterlands but instead chose to remain in urban centres, to the detriment of the population in the rural areas.

“You cannot bring people who cannot teach, who will refuse to go to the villages where we need teachers, choosing to remain in the cities. They have to remain in Lafia, Akwanga, Keffi, Karu. Some of them don’t even want to go to Toto to talk less of Gudi. These are the problems we are facing.

“I don’t want you to feel that you have pleaded with me, and I have refused to help. In reality, I don’t have any problem helping whomever, but I don’t want to bastardize our education system,” he said.

While awaiting the outcome of the committee set up to investigate the matter, he said the best option out of the predicament is for his administration to organize another interview session for all those employed, including the 1000 teachers already approved, to give everyone the opportunity and to be able to select the best amongst them.

“Let our selection of competent teachers come from there so that they can be given equal opportunity. This time around, we will not allow these types of people to engage them. We cannot get it right if we fail to do the right thing. My dream is to get it right in Nasarawa State. That is the dream of my colleague. But we can’t get it right except if we are honest to ourselves,” he stated. (The Nation)