Poor teaching: Benue to recertify teachers

The Benue State government has announced plans to recertify teachers to address the poor quality of education in the state.

The Director-General of Benue State Education Quality Assurance Agency (BEQA), Dr Terna Francis, disclosed this yesterday during an interview with journalists at his office in Makurdi.

Francis, who expressed concern about the state of learning in schools across Benue, said Governor Hyacinth Alia established the agency to address the deficiencies in education quality by documenting, controlling, and assessing learning standards in basic and post-basic education.

“We met a mess in the education sector. Several schools in the state have structural defects. People convert their two-bedroom flats to schools. The teachers are just secondary school leavers. Someone who just finished SS3 teaching SS3 physics. A proprietor chokes students in a poultry farm. This is unacceptable and we are going to close the school down. Education is just for profiteering without quality.

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“We have been doing our best to clean up the mess. The agency is a bureau directly answerable to the governor.

“We have called for recertification and gathering of data about the quality of teachers and paying of annual renewal fees. We sent out our evaluators to confirm the data schools give to us.

“I have visited over 300 schools in the state. We have warned school proprietors and proprietresses to put things in place or have their schools sealed. We are not compromising standards and quality no matter who is involved. We are not backing down. We have the political backing,” he said.