As controversy continues to trail Governor Ademola Adeleke’s sack of 1,500 teachers employed at the tail end of the administration of former Governor of Osun State, Gboyega Oyetola, the Nigeria Union of Teachers in the state has lamented worsening rate of out-of-school children.
Oyetola had alleged that Adeleke’s action contributed to falling standard of education in the state, arguing that relieving the teachers of their duties was politically motivated.
The Chairman of NUT in the state, Muritala Fatade, said the shortage of teachers in public schools would continue to contribute to the number of out of school children in the state if nothing was done to change the narrative.
Fatade, in an interview, noted that there was shortage of teachers in public schools in both rural and urban areas.
According to him, though the case of rural areas was worse, the urban areas as well are grossly in need of teachers.
He disclosed that no school in the urban areas had Assistant Headmasters, which amounted to the shortage of teachers.
The NUT Chairman said, “We have been telling the government since inception that they inherited a shortage of teachers and lack of infrastructure but they promised to intervene. We applaud the government of Adeleke for the job they are doing.
“In the urban areas, where we have headmaster or headmistress, we should have an assistant who will fit in when the HM is unavailable. As I speak, there is no assistant HM in schools in the urban areas which amount to shortage of teachers. When we came into the civil service, we had two HMs in schools in the urban areas.
“But I am a witness that the government is doing their possible best to recruit more teachers in the public primary and secondary schools. I witnessed such at a meeting last month.
“Definitely, where there is no good environment for learning, the pupils or students won’t be motivated to go to school. And believe me, these children will go home to report to their parents.
“These will allow parents to stop sending their children to school or students will not get to school when they already know there is no teacher to teach them.”
Meanwhile, the state government has promised to recruit 6,000 teachers before June, this year.
The state Commissioner for Information and Public Enlightenment, Kolapo Alimi, said, “If the former governor was really interested in addressing the rot in the education sector, how come he waited till he lost the election before rushing through recruitment of teachers against due process and extant laws?
“If the so-called recruited teachers were retained, how would that have positively impacted on poor learning conditions, dilapidated school infrastructures, parental economic crisis and overwhelming dislocations within the school environment which are the real reasons for the high number of out-of-school children inherited from Oyetola government?
“As part of efforts to clear the mess of past government, the state government organized an education summit which proffered far reaching recommendations covering all sub-sectors of the state education system.”
