Eighty per cent of teachers in Nasarawa State are not qualified and would fail an aptitude test if it was administered on them, Governor Tanko Al-Makura said in Akwanga on Monday.
In a speech at the opening ceremony of a conference to review the minimum standards of the National Certificate of Education (NCE), Al-makura said government embarked on some research which revealed that most primary and secondary school teachers have no business in the classrooms.
Al-Makura, who was represented by Commissioner for Education Aliyu Tijjani Ahmed, however allayed teachers’ fears of an appraisal test.
“We are not planning a test for the teachers; we only intend to train and retrain them so as to build their capacities for better service delivery,” he said.
He appealed to the National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE), and other stakeholders to step-up supervision in order to save the sector from total collapse.
The governor advised the reviewers to pay special attention to technical education and entrepreneurship to make NCE graduates more attractive to employers of labour.
In his speech Executive Secretary of NCCE, Prof. Bappah Aliyu, said the conference would review the current curriculum and inject new ideas so as to boost the quality of the graduates.
He said that such review was last carried out in 2012, and urged stakeholders to offer suggestions that would shore up the quality of colleges of education to enable them produce qualified teachers.
Earlier, Mrs. Rebecca Umaru, Provost, College of Education, Akwanga, thanked the NCCE for selecting the institution to host the conference.
She expressed optimism that the outcome of the conference would keep lecturers and the management of the respective colleges on their toes in the efforts to produce teachers that would be assets to the society.