The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the teachers’
union was reacting to the governor’s statement two weeks ago, in which he
announced plans to sack 21,780 primary school teachers who allegedly failed a
competency test and replace them with 25,000 new ones.
Audu Amba, NUT Chairman in the state said at a press conference
in Kaduna, that the union would embark on total strike if the government sack
any teacher.
Amba said that the decision was taken at an emergency meeting of
the union executive council held on Thursday.
According to him, the teachers were not tested based on
professionalism, adding that the NUT will only recognise test conducted by the
Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria.
“The so-called competency test was not a true test, because you
can only test a teacher by supervising him while he teaches in class,” he
argued.
The NUT chairman described the 75 per cent pass mark used to
determine those that failed as unacceptable, saying, “there is nowhere in the
country where such mark is used.”
“What we agreed in the committee was 60 per cent, only for the
Governor to use 75 per cent; yes, we agree that there are incompetent teachers
among us, but the decision of the state government was not what we agreed at
the committee level,” Amba said.
He nonetheless said that NUT would continue to support the
government to bring about sanity in the teaching profession by ensuring that
only qualified teachers are employed to teach.
“These teachers did not employ themselves; they were employed by
the state government only to turn around and declare them unqualified.
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