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By Akanji Alowolodu, Bauchi
Bauchi State Ministry of Education has declared that no amount of intimidation will make it succumb to blackmail by people it described as failures.
The declaration was made by the Commissioner of Education, Dr. Aliyu Tilde who lamented that 700 out of the 1,000 women that were trained in partnership with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), failed primary six mathematics, English and Essay but are now intimidating and victimizing government officials.
The Commissioner was reacting to what he described as unnecessary protest by the trainees held on Saturday, saying that the government would put the future of millions of learners in danger should it employ them as classroom teachers.
Aliyu Usman further said that, “Some of the women among the 1000 Female Teachers Training Scheme who failed the test are protesting why they were not employed as promised when the programme was introduced for four years starting 2019 when they finished NCE.”
According to the Commissioner, “Government was ready to employ all of them but only if they passed a recruitment test. We tested them on Primary Six Maths, English and Essay. Finally because of their massive failure, we came down to employing anyone who has at least 50 percent in Maths or English and grade C in English,”.
The Commissioner added that about 300 passed but only 249 scaled the recruitment interview that followed and the Governor has approved their employment.
He also said that government has kept its side of the bargain, “But they didn’t keep theirs in that they have not studied well enough, as you can see from these terrible scripts, to be sent to classrooms as teachers” .
He stressed that, “They are free to say anything on social media, seek the aid of ‘human rights’ groups or even go to court. We are protecting the rights of the helpless children whose lives would be destroyed if we send them to the classroom” .
He then declared that, ‘We can’t undermine the future of thousands of children that will become victims of their 40 years of poor performance as “qualified teachers.”
The Commissioner disclosed that the leader of the protesters scored 9/40 in Primary School English and 10/40 in Maths stressing that, “No amount of blackmail on social media will make the government to employ her” .
Under the collaboration, UNICEF had trained 50 while Bauchi State Government trained 950 making a total of 1000 women in an effort to have enough females as teachers in the state.
