By Mohammed Abubakar Dutse
As part of its efforts at boosting the quality of teaching staff in it’s education sector, the Jigawa state government has rolled out plans to organize competency test for its teachers.
The exercise, which is going to be based on Computer-Based Test (CBT) is aimed at assessing their competence and enhance their capacity to impart knowledge
The Chairman of the Jigawa State Universal Basic Education Board, (JSUBEB), Prof. Haruna Musa, who rolled out the plans while briefing newsmen during a media interaction in Dutse, said the move, which is the first in the history of the state was aimed at sanitizing the teaching profession.
He said the exercise was in line with Governor Umar Namadi administration’s vision of improving the quality of teaching and learning in the state.
He said the expected outcomes of the assessment test would be the categorization of the teachers into competent, semi competent and poor teachers.
He noted that the move became necessary given the teaching and learning crises the state has faced for years, resulting in the famed educational backwardness over the years.
According to him, “We have employed several initiatives that will address learning poverty in the state, while the state is making efforts to ensure that teachers that are not going to school to teach go back to classrooms; at the same time, we are working to improve the quality of teachers.”
Prof. Musa explained that the board plans to conduct training for all 10,000 teachers, and to avoid duplication. The CBT was introduced to identify the specific training needs of each teacher.
He, however, allayed the fears of teachers of possible retrenchment assuring that the exercise was not aimed at punishing, sacking or creating inconvenience for teachers but at improving their quality and skills.
“The competent teachers are those with content and skill knowledge, semi competent are those teachers with content knowledge but they don’t have skill to teach. For this category, we will use the resources available and see how we can train them in order to improve their skills.
“The last category are those who don’t have both the content knowledge and skill . We are going to use available colleges of education in the state to give them special training for them to migrate from poor teachers to semi competent teachers.”
Musa noted that the portal for all 10,000 permanent and pensionable teachers to register and submit their credentials would soon be opened.
He solicited the cooperation of teachers for the success of the exercise.
Prof Haruna explained that the idea behind introducing the teachers capacity test was sequel to the reported cases of incompetency and absenteeism among the school teachers in the state.
He said: “The state government is seriously disturbed on the matter as such it has become imperative to introduce the programme to enable our teachers compete with their counterpart in other states.”
He said the reported cases of teachers’ absenteeism were discovered through various communities who are disturbed with the unruly trend, adding that government will not fold its arms and allow teachers to sabotage government efforts.
The SUBEB Boss noted that government had no intention to sack and erring teachers, instead it will acquit them with basic knowledge to enhance their performance and other necessary support.
According to Prof.Musa, government will soon engage the services of an additional 4,000 teachers through the J-Teach programme saying the total number of teachers across primary and junior secondary schools in the state stood at 17,900.
He commended the present administration under Governor Namadi for his priorities to education sector through his 12 point agenda, saying he is supporting all the sectors as and when due.
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