Connect with us
Advertisement

Nigeria News

Kaduna Gov’t Sacks 233 School Teachers Over Certificate Forgery

Published

on

El-Rufai's Location After Leaving Nigeria 'Confirmed' (Photo)

Governor Nasir El-Rufai-led government of Kaduna State has sacked no fewer than 233 primary school teachers over certificate forgery.

This is as the State Universal Basic Education Board carried out verification on about four hundred and fifty-one certificates to ascertain their authenticity and to ensure the teachers meet certain requirements, Naija News understands.

Chairman of the board, Tijjani Abdullahi, who disclosed the development to newsmen in Kaduna on Thursday, maintained that there was no going back in the conduct of competency tests for public school teachers in the state.

Abdullahi noted that the board had commenced verification exercises since April in other to confirm if teachers possess the qualifications they claimed.

He noted that so far, the board verified 451 certificates from 13 institutions, adding that out of the figures, 233 certificates were discovered to be ‘fake’.

The SUBEB chairman insisted that the 233 teachers found with the fake certificates would be dismissed with immediate effect and would be made to face the full weight of the law.

He added that as part of the board’s transparency, the names of the 233 teachers with fake certificates would be uploaded on the state government’s website.

“The Kaduna State Universal Basic Education Board (KADSUBEB) wishes to update you on recent developments in its continuous quest to improve standards in public basic education schools,” Abdullahi said.

He added: “As part of its responsibility to ensure that all teachers actually have the qualifications they presented, the Board launched a certificate verification exercise in April 2021.

“The major objective of this exercise was to ensure that all our teachers have the requisite credentials that constitute the basic qualifications for employment as teachers.

“So far, the Board has verified 451 certificates by contacting the institutions that awarded the certificates. Nine of the 13 institutions contacted have responded, as of today.”

“The responses from the institutions show that 233 teachers presented fake certificates. This represents 51% of the 451 certificates on which responses have been received from the awarding institutions. One institution disowned 212 of these 233 fake certificates.

“The Board will dismiss the 233 teachers who presented these fake certificates, while their files will be forwarded to the Ministry of Justice to initiate prosecution for forgery.”

Abdullahi further disclosed that public teachers in the state would soon commence the conduct of competency tests for public school teachers in the state. According to him, the test will start as from January 2022 with 12,254 teachers across the state.

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

“The Board will follow up the competency test with a series of training programmes organised in batches for teachers. This will begin in January 2022 for 12,254 teachers.

“The Board has signed MoUs with the National Teachers Institute, the College of Education, Gidan Waya, and the Federal College of Education, Zaria, to conduct the training exercise.”