Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State and teachers in the state are set for war. The Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT), Kaduna State on Thursday 26th October, 2017 vowed to shut down all public schools if any of its members is sacked by the governor.
Nasir el-Rufai, Executive Governor of Kaduna State
NUT Chairman, Audu Amba in the state said that: “Teachers were not tested based on professionalism and 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.”
“The 75 per cent pass mark used to determine those that failed is unacceptable, 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.”
“These teachers did not employ themselves; they were employed by the state government only to turn around and declare them unqualified. They are our members and we have a duty to protect our own.”
For those who don’t know, 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.