Kaduna Dec. 2, 2021 (NAN) The Kaduna State Universal Basic Education Board is set to dismiss 233 teachers working with fake certificates.

Chairman of the board, Tijjani Abdullahi, announced this at a news conference in Kaduna on Thursday.

Abdullahi said the board embarked upon certificate verification in April as part of its responsibility to ensure that teachers actually had the qualifications they presented.

He said so far, the board had verified 451 certificates by contacting the institutions that awarded them.

“Nine of the 13 institutions contacted have responded.

“The responses show that 233 teachers presented fake certificates. This represents 51 per cent of the 451 certificates on which responses have been received from the awarding institutions.

“One institution disowned 212 of these 233 certificates.

“The board will dismiss the 233 teachers who presented the fake certificates and their files forwarded to the Ministry of Justice to initiate prosecution for forgery,’’ the chairman said.

According to him, the names of the 233 teachers found to have presented fake certificates will be uploaded on the website of the Kaduna State Government on Thursday, Dec. 2.

He said the board would continue to check the integrity of the certificates presented by teachers to ensure that “this critical profession is not devalued by impostors’’.

“When the Kaduna State government recruited 25,000 new teachers after the 2017 competency test, it made it clear that it would continue to assess its teachers both for their own improvement and for better delivery of learning outcomes for pupils,’’ he added.

Abdullahi said the state would soon conduct competency test for its teachers, adding that the test would be followed up with series of trainings.

“This will begin in January 2022 for 12,254 teachers.

“The board has signed Memoranda of Understanding with the National Teachers Institute, the College of Education, Gidan Waya and the Federal College of Education, Zaria, on the training,’’ he said. (NAN)