By Emmanuel Nduka
The Kaduna State Universal Basic Education Board (KADSUBEB) on Thursday said 233 public school teachers will be sacked for presenting forged certificates during a verification exercise conducted earlier in the year.
Disclosing this at a press conference in Kaduna, Chairman of the Kaduna SUBEB, Tijjani Abdullahi, added that the Board will also report the teachers found wanting to the Ministry of Justice for prosecution over forgery.
He recalled that the Board had launched a certificate verification exercise in April 2021 as part of its responsibility to ensure that teachers in the state have the requisite credentials that constitute the basic qualifications for employment as teachers.
“451 certificates were verified by the institutions that awarded them and results from nine of the 13 institutions contacted revealed that 233 teachers presented fake certificates.
“This represents 51% of the 451 certificates on which responses have been received,” he added.
While reiterating that the board will continue to check the integrity of public school teachers to ensure that the profession is not devalued by impostors, the Chairma noted that a competency test will be conducted for public teachers in the state followed by training programmes for them
“The Board also wishes to inform the people of Kaduna State that it will shortly be conducting the competency test for teachers. 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,” Tijani added.