IN SEARCH OF A SOFT - LANDING FOR TEACHERS: AN OPEN LETTER TO THE EXECUTIVE GOVERNOR OF KADUNA STATE

IN SEARCH OF A SOFT - LANDING FOR TEACHERS: AN OPEN LETTER TO THE EXECUTIVE GOVERNOR OF KADUNA STATE

                              By:

Nurudeen Dauda

          October 12, 2017

nurudeendauda24@gmail.com

nurudeendauda24@yahoo.com

nurudeendauda.blogspot.com

Good day Your Excellency sir! Accept my best wishes sir! I do hope this letter will get to you through the power of both social and conventional media.

Sir, as a concern citizen of Kaduna state I want to appeal to your government to give the would be sacked teachers a "Special Treatment". Pleased come with me for my though on that. I fully endorse the "sacking" of the about 21,780 unqualified teachers and the plan recruitment of 25,000 qualified teachers as their replacement.  Education does not only hold the key to "social mobility" but also to "development". Without sound education the children of the poorest poor will never be at far with the children of the rich and the powerful.

However, in order to provide a "soft- landing" to the unqualified teachers that are going to be thrown into the labour market, In my humble suggestion, your government should "sponsor" the "training" of these teachers in the "Kaduna Business School". Sir, all sorts of "Vocational training" should be given to these teachers at the cost of the government of Kaduna state.

More so, the teachers to be disengaged should be taught skills such as : Poultry/Fish farming , Hairdressing/ Barbing skills, modern laundry Services, Catering Services, Cake/Snacks Baking, Bead /Jewelry making, Event management, Detergent / Soap Making, and painting/ Tiles fixing etc. The teachers be allowed to decide on what skills to learn.

Your Excellency Sir, make sure that before their disengagements you would have calculated all their entitlements for the years of service they most have put up and pay them as soon as their disengagements letters are given to them. Having trained them in the respective vocational skills listed above it is our hope that they will use the money and start- up something. Your Excellency, it is also my considered suggestion that your government serves as a "Guarantor" in the Bank of Agriculture, BOA; Bank of Industry, BOI; and the New Development Bank of Nigeria for Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises to the would be sacked teachers in order to obtain loans and expand their start ups capital.

I am not surprised at all that more than 60% of the primary schools teachers in Kaduna state failed primary four students examination questions. I am equally convinced that the story will be the same in nearly all the Northern states where recruitment of schools teachers became politicized since return to democracy . Most of the people employed as teachers by the previous governments have no Nigerian Certificate in Education (NCE) which is the minimum qualification for teaching. In fact most of the people employed were either secondary school failures or even dropouts. 

The reason for their employment ,in my observation, is simple because they are in politics or they know one politician or another. Most of the teachers employed, in my view, need to go back to secondary schools and rewrite their Senior Secondary Certificates, Examination, SSCEs. A lot of teachers in the states were employed with their brothers and sisters SSCEs not their own. Teaching jobs in public primary schools in Kaduna state and other Northern states became a means of compensating political thugs after winning elections.

Permit me to congratulate the about 34% teachers that passed the exams.

May God bless Kaduna state!