The minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, has said that all teachers in the nation’s educational system without basic qualifications will be disengaged from the service by December 31, 2019.
Adamu, who was represented by the Executive Secretary, Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), Prof. Hamid Boboyi, disclosed this on Monday in Benin at the Edo Summit themed: “Edo of our dream, investing in people.”
“We must stop recruiting unqualified teachers into the system especially when we have many qualified teachers roaming our streets without regular jobs.
“The National Council of Education under my chairmanship has given a clear directive to all our unqualified teachers as well their employers to acquire the requisite qualifications or disengage from teaching on or before December 31, 2019. This remains an irrevocable order of the council,” he said.
Adamu expressed President Muhammadu Buhari’s commitment to sustain and fund basic education sub-sector through the UBEC or support state governments, adding that over N258.5 billion has been expended on basic education in the country.
“Between 2015 and 2018, the federal government has allocated to states the sum of N164billion as matching grants, N34.974billion for teachers’ professional development, N52.461billion for instructional materials and N6.994 billion for special education,” he said.
Adamu noted that the challenge of effective basic education delivery in the country is the over 10 million out-of-school children in the primary school system and that it is essential for all stakeholders to sustain their efforts in ensuring that the figure is substantially brought down.
“In addressing this, the ministerial strategy plans to curb this is being actively pursued by all agencies of government. The Almajiri integration programme and the basic education for all has been re-tooled to meet the need of stakeholders while the basic education delivery for all supported by World Bank has become effective and taken off in earnest.” he said.
He commended the Edo state government for integrating into its action plans all the educational infrastructure provided by the federal government, saying that it has one of the lowest numbers of out-of-school children in the entire country.
The minister lamented that teachers salaries account for over 80 percent of states’ budgetary allocations, a development which made states without reasonable incomes from other sources to spend on their basic education rely almost entirely on federal government and UBE funds to support school infrastructural development in their states.
Earlier, Governor Godwin Obaseki, said he has established the Edo Basic Education Transformation which take care of governance and institutional strengthening of education and school system, teacher development and quality assurance, improving infrastructure and facility among others.
While explaining that his administration has finalised new education policy for the state, he said they have trained over 7,000 on digital method of imparting knowledge and learning in schools.
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