Cross Rivers State Commissioner for Education, Sen. Stephen Odey, has called for the recruitment of minimum of 20,000 teachers to alleviate the shortage of teaching staff in public schools across the state.
Sen. Odey, made the call while addressing the press on Calabar on Tuesday, revealing that the administration led by Sen. Bassey Otu has initiated a large-scale teacher employment drive to bridge the gap. “However, due to financial constraints, the recruitment process would be phased.”
Despite this challenge, Odey emphasised ongoing reforms aimed at revitalising the education sector within the state.
He ssid, “We are determined to reform the sector holistically because we want to make Cross River a reference point in education sector amongst the commity of states.”
Presently, according to him, a memorandum is awaiting the governor’s approval to initiate the recruitment of 6,000 teachers as a first step towards addressing the pressing need for educators in Cross River’s public schools.
“There is already a memo before the governor for us to start with the employment of 6,000 teachers.
“We discovered that many schools, especially in the rural area, haveonly two teachers and this is not how we intend to be the best in the country.
“The money the government paid as fee for West Africa Examination Council (WAEC) for students in the state will amount to nothing without teachers to teach them.”
Odey disclosed that priority would be given to the employment of teachers in their catchment areas as the state was not buoyant enough to pay peculiar allowances to teachers in rural areas.
Speaking on the payment of WAEC fee, Odey dispelled the rumour that the 16,301 list was padded.
He said rather that, the list was not exhaustive as some schools that submitted late were not captured.
“The only issue that arose from the list was that we found out that some names were duplicated during compilation which brought the figure to about 16,287 students.
“Even at that, we had students from about 20 schools that were not included because of late submission; for instance, a particular school in Boki had over a thousand students not included.
“For the avoidance of doubt, those principals that were found not to have been diligent in their duty have been sanctioned.
“About 37 of them are in this category and are going to be demoted to the classrooms,” he said.
The Commissioner further said part of the reform is to ensure uniformity in school system in the state as well as go after illegal schools.
On school uniformity, he said, “Upon resumption in office, I discovered that schools across the state, both public and private, operate different school calendars.
“We have been able to streamline this to a large extent and still working to ensure all around complaint across the state, are addressed,” he explained.