By Lawal A Dogara, Kaduna
Kaduna State Governor, Malam Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai has called on National Assembly members from Kaduna State to help save future generations from servitude by ensuring that quality public education is offered in the state.
El-Rufai made this call in Abuja while holding a regular consultative meeting with members of the National Assembly from the state. The governor also informed the lawmakers that the state government has received 43, 806 applications from prospective teachers in public primary schools in the state.
He explained that all shortlisted applicants will be subjected to oral and practical examinations, to be followed by interview and final verification to ascertain the authenticity of their qualifications. Those who scale through will undergo training on teaching before their deployment to classrooms to teach.
“The issue of ensuring quality and competent teachers in public schools is something crucial and doable, but it requires courage, sincerity and honesty as guiding principles.
“We are all products of quality public schools and can compete anywhere in the world; we are beneficiaries of quality education from public schools and we have achieved a lot from the sacrifices made by previous leaders.
“Having benefitted from quality public education, we must be committed to reviving our public schools. The unqualified teachers that are being replaced will get all their rights and entitlements.
“This reform is necessary hard work, and will not be derailed by propaganda, blackmail, and deliberate misrepresentation of facts.
“Reform is not restricted to recruiting and retaining competent teachers. We are constructing and reconstructing schools, class rooms, updating the curriculum, providing facilities and teaching aids and teachers’ welfare.
“We removed the career barrier for teachers in 2015. Teachers in Kaduna State can rise to Grade Level 17 (Permanent Secretary grade) without having to stop being teachers.
The governor thanked the lawmakers for their immense support irrespective of political parties.
“We all agreed that we must pursue this cause as a path to free present and future generations. There is no future for a country that consigns most of its people to ignorance. The key issue here is that we must make sacrifices and provide our children and future generations a quality of education that can give enhance their life prospects, and guarantee self-reliance for all our people. This can only be feasible with quality education in all our public schools at primary and secondary levels.”
Rt. Hon. Yakubu Umar Barde, the Minority Whip in the House of Representatives, led the Kaduna State National Assembly delegation to the meeting. He assured the governor that they will continue to work assiduously with the governor for the progress of the state.
