TheCable

The Osun government has approved the recruitment of 5,000 teachers and 250 education officers.

NAN reports that Olawale Rasheed, the chief press secretary to Ademola Adeleke, Osun state governor, announced this on Wednesday.

Rasheed said the recruitment would fill existing vacancies in the state’s teaching service.

He said approval for the recruitment of teachers was sequel to the conclusion of a needs assessment conducted by the government in 2023.

He said the council directed the state education ministry to fast-track the process of recruiting qualified and competent hands to enhance teaching and learning.

The recruitment for Osun is coming as public schools in several other states decry a chronic shortage of teachers.

EBONYI DECRIES TEACHER SHORTAGE

In the south-eastern state of Ebonyi, the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) and other education stakeholders, are worried by what they described as the declining quality of public primary schools in the state.

The NUT hosted an education reform roundtable in collaboration with the state ministry of education and the Technology for Transformative Development Foundation (TTDF).

Ewah Eleri, the foundation’s CEO, said over 80 percent of primary schools in Ebonyi were deficient in the areas of learning materials, teachers, classrooms, and furniture.

“The children study under trees in many of the schools. Some sit on bare floors and some without the necessary books,” he said.

“Many schools around the state exist without toilets. About 75.2 percent of schools make use of bush for defecation while 11.9 percent use ‘shit and bury’ methods.”

Francis Elechi, the Ebonyi state NUT chairman, said teacher shortage is one of the critical challenges facing the state’s basic education.

Elechi said classrooms are empty because there is an acute shortage of teachers in the schools.

RETIREMENT, POPULATION PRESSURE IN LAGOS

The Lagos chapter of the NUT says the shortage of teachers in the state should be treated as an emergency.

Akintoye Hassan, the chapter’s chairman, said teachers in public primary and secondary schools are exiting at an alarming rate without commensurate replacements.

“The NUT in Lagos initiated and championed the bill for the elongation of teachers’ retirement age from 60 years to 65 years. Some other states are already implementing similar bills, but Lagos is yet to start,” he said.

Hassan said the migration of Nigerians for greener pastures abroad is equally affecting the teacher population.

The NUT chairman said the rapidly rising student population in these schools is putting pressure on an already lean workforce.

“In some schools, students are now overcrowded in classrooms because more people are migrating into Lagos. The recent economic situation has made parents re-enroll their children in public schools from private,” he said. 

“We are experiencing a dearth of teachers in schools to meet the demand of overcrowded students in classrooms. We just do not have enough hands.”