APC, NUT Raise Alarm Over Shortage Of Teachers In Edo Public Schools

The Edo State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has backed the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) in its position on the state of public education in the state, which it blamed on government failure to employ permanent teachers in primary and secondary schools.
The APC said it was throwing its weight behind the teachers’ agitation on Sunday in a statement signed by its assistant state publicity secretary, Victor Ofure Osehobo.
The NUT during the 2022 World Teachers’ Day celebration in Benin city, October appealed to the state government to recruit permanent teachers in the public primary and secondary schools.
According to the World Teachers Day with the theme, “The Transformation of Education begins with Teachers”. Supporting the teachers’ demand, the opposition party blamed the collapse of the educational system in the state on the inaction and insensitivity of the People’s Democratic Party-led government in the state.
Ofure Osehebo who said the APC condemns the alleged inaction of the Obaseki government, noted that shortage of teachers in public primary and secondary schools in rural areas was inexcusable.
He explained that the shortage of teachers since the assumption of the Obaseki-led government in 2016 was a deliberate ploy to paralyze the once vibrant education sector in the state.
The APC said if the government had listened when it repeatedly raised the alarm few years ago by employing qualified teachers, the present decadent scenario would have been avoided.
The party said its fears were increased during the World Teachers Day, when the State chapter of the Nigerian Union of Teachers, NUT, asked the state governor to employ permanent teachers for the primary and secondary schools.
“The insensitivity of the governor became glaring over the years when repeatedly, he claimed to have transformed education with the fictitious EdoBest 1.0 and very recently with EdoBest 2.0. Obviously, the two programs are hallmarks of his Make Edo Grounded Again, MEGA, policy.
“Edo people know that the so called EdoBest 1.0 as it turned out, was the governor’s purchase, in billions of Naira, of fairly used handheld devices for non-existent teachers.”Because it was a hoax, the governor recently renamed it EdoBest 2.0 with the announcement of a change in the designation of heads of schools as executive headmasters or principals”, he said.
Calling on the state government to do some soul-searching over the current state of education in the state, he said failure to employ qualified permanent teachers has left children without quality education, which is the key to their leadership of tomorrow.
Ofure further stated that only a careless and inept leadership like the PDP government would ignore the danger signals a decline in education standards poses to the future of the state, stressing that a the shortage of teachers made the party to align with the NUT.
The APC insisted that in the interest of the future of the state, the governor must immediately begin the recruitment of trained teachers and deploy them to schools across the state.
“Edo State belongs to all of us, just as every Edo child has a right to quality education; no government should mortgage education, which is the lifeblood of any society for any reason or under any guise, whatsoever,” he added.
In April 2021, the state government said it spent over N billion on infrastructure for its public primary schools in the last three years.
Ms Osa-Oviawe, the then, chair, Edo State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) made the disclosure during an interactive session with journalists as part of activities marking the third anniversary of the launch of Edo Basic Education Sector Transformation (EdoBEST) in Benin City.
She said part of the fund was spent on the construction and rehabilitation of over 400 schools while furniture were also provided by the state government.
Ms Oviawe stressed that, the administration trained over 11,000 teachers, with plans to hire about 3,000 graduates as new teachers in the state.