Shortage of teachers a big challenge – SUBEB Chairman

The Chairman of Benue State Universal Basic Education (SUBEB), Rev. Phillip Tachin speaks  on enrolment in public schools and challenges of shortage of teachers in the state. What effort is the board making to upgrade primary education? The board has awarded contracts for the renovation of over 700 schools and the contract works are going […]

The Chairman of Benue State Universal Basic Education (SUBEB), Rev. Phillip Tachin speaks  on enrolment in public schools and challenges of shortage of teachers in the state.

What effort is the board making to upgrade primary education?

The board has awarded contracts for the renovation of over 700 schools and the contract works are going on. I have a special task force to monitor the projects to ensure that contractors strictly abide by specifications. We observed that over the past years, contractors were given jobs but they performed poorly, and they were also paid for those shoddy jobs. For instance, some of those projects, carried out only about five and three years ago, are already dilapidated.

It is unfortunate that some of those buildings now have cracks on the walls but those contractors have built their own personal homes which have stood the test of time; for 20 or more years without cracks. So, the special task force is there to monitor the buildings in all 23 local government areas of the state.

The total amount we got from the federal government is N7.6 billion; and projects were tied to the monies such as construction, renovation and supply of computers among others. Vehicles and motorcycles have been bought from the money for purposes of monitoring.

We also held training for some teachers last year in the areas of jolly phonics to enable teaching of the accurate pronunciation of words. We are thinking of improving on the phonics training by bringing innovation that will make it more effective to justify the federal government’s money spent on the training. We shall boost school enrolment by launching a campaign that would create awareness among the pupils and their parents as well as other stakeholders.

What is the current rate of primary school enrolment?

At the time I came, we had just around 300,000 of pupils in public primary schools. We have done a lot of campaign but are yet to send out our team to conduct census so, I can’t give an accurate figure of the number of children presently in the schools. But it has increased significantly. For instance, I visited one primary school and the head teacher told me that they have 800 pupils and that many of them were newly enrolled so I believe that many of the schools have taken in new students. This year, precisely by April our team will go round the schools to take census so that we can articulate the successes of our campaign and other initiatives to attract children to school.

 

What incentives have you put in place to attract these pupils to schools?

It should be broader than incentives because there are so many things that would attract our children back to school. The federal government has initiated the school feeding programme, which would commence in the state very soon; it is one of the incentives that would definitely draw some children to school.

Apart from that, we intend to install computers in our public primary schools this year so as to improve computer literacy rates amongst elementary school children. Once parents know that this is taking place, they would bring their children to school because they want them to get the best.

I have also told teachers to become computer literate because soon, we will begin to do most things online including promotion exercises. You know if teachers and pupils get to become computer literate, there would be lots of excitement in the classrooms. We will also embark on massive campaign this year in the rural areas by organising town hall meetings to encourage various communities to send their children to school. Definitely, we will give out lots of free gifts such as exercise books among others to attract them.

There are concerns about unpaid teachers’ salaries, which has not only affected the quality of teaching but qualified teachers moving from the public service to private sector. Do you have plans for teachers’ welfare?

It is unfortunate that teachers are owed many months’ in salaries. This government inherited a backlog of unpaid salaries owed by the previous administration. Governor Samuel Ortom has been doing his best to pay all these salaries but it is yet to be achieved. I am looking at possibly suggesting to the governor to source the funding that would be used to clear the backlog and enable teachers to be on the same page as other workers.

The governor has explained the situation to the teachers and they have not gone on strike due to his transparency. We are hoping that by the first quarter of this year, we will be able to find a way out. We have worked on the teachers’ promotions even though we expect the challenge of implementation. The teachers got their last pay in May, 2016 while the other civil servants are just some months ahead of the teachers. This is owing to the situation that I just explained.

Are there any measures by the board to address shortage of teachers in the state?

The issue of shortage of teachers is a big challenge. As we speak, the rough figure we have for school teachers has always been put at just over 18,000. Of this number, the township schools are heavily loaded with teachers while the rural areas have scanty number of teachers. The question here is whether we really have a shortage or whether there are people who claimed to be teachers but do not teach; who only exist on our payroll.

It has been a very big headache and I am working round-the-clock to unravel the mystery. We are going to tackle this. Again, the federal government has come to our rescue with the N-Power programme, which recruited some teachers.

What is the condition of nomadic education and special education in the state?

We are doing fairly well in those areas. We have 43 nomadic schools in the state. The nomadic schools are more concentrated in Agatu Local Government Area and some in other places in the state. They function well except in Agatu where there was a serious security challenge. In the interim, we trained teachers in nomadic education last year which we intend to continue for efficiency and effectiveness.

In the area of special education, a project is currently going on in Buruku Local Government, which would soon be completed. We have purchased textbooks, which would soon be distributed to special schools for our children. School activities have been suspended in areas with serious security challenges in the state because parents, pupils and teachers fear for their safety, but projects still hold in some of those places. Government is working hard to tackle the challenges and once that is resolved, the schools would resume fully. For now, those places include, some parts of Kastina Ala and Agatu area.