A nation of fake teachers

Cross Rivers and Adamawa States have the highest number of fake teachers under the Federal Teachers Scheme in a report by the UBE Commission in Abuja. Muhammad Tahir Hassan in this report takes a look at the list and its implications on the nation’s education sector.

The provision of universal basic education comes second in the Millennium Development Goals; this implies that come 2015, every Nigerian must have access to basic education. It is in line with that, that the federal government set up the Universal Basic Education Commission in October 1999 with all the 36 states and the FCT having their own boards. Since its inception, the UBEC had been working round the clock to ensure that Nigerian pupils have access to quality basic education under the tutelage of qualified teachers. However, this goal may have had a set back going by a recent publication which shows that over 3, 000 teachers in the state Federal Teacher’s Scheme have fake certificates.

It will be recalled that the Federal Government has in the year 2006 established the Federal Teachers Scheme (FTS) with two main objectives. The first objective is to address the shortfall in teacher supply to schools and secondly, to provide employment for the teeming unemployed population in the country.

According to the list, Cross River state has the highest number of fake participants with 600 persons, Adamawa State is second with 447, Delta State has 278, Kano is closely next with 206. Other states that make up the top ten in the list are Sokoto with 159, Kaduna and Niger States with 140 each; Edo State has 120 fake teachers, under the scheme, while Lagos completes the top ten list with 105. Nine states have less than ten fake teachers under the Federal teacher’s scheme, these States are; Kwara has 9, Osun with 8, Yobe, Nassarawa and Ekiti States have 7 each, Borno has 6, Ebonyi is next with 5 while Katsina has 3, Ondo state has just one person.

A break down of the list according to geo-political zone indicates that the South South is top with 1, 015 fake teachers under the scheme, the North East has 777 while the North West has 659. The North Central and South

East have 431 and 145 respectively, while the South West contributed the least number of fake teachers with 83.

Going by the list, only Zamfara, Bayelsa and Akwa Ibom states have a clean bill of health after the screening as there were no fake teachers discovered. The certificate verification exercise was carried out by UBEC with the collaboration of Colleges of Education and Polytechnics in the states across the federation.

According to the Federal Government, the Federal Teahers Scheme initiative is a part of its efforts to assist states in the implementation of the UBEC programme towards attaining the Millennium Development Goals. In a statement from the UBEC in Abuja, the scheme is a two year programme for unemployed qualified NCE graduates and is also expected to serve as a period of internship preparatory to their formal absorption into the teaching profession.

With this fall out, observers have said that a spanner has been thrown in the wheels of the UBEC explaining that with 2014 around the corner, the efforts of providing basic education to Nigerians must have suffered a set back. In a country where the education sector is still trying to find its ground, there is a big doubt on the true actualization of the provision of universal basic education as contained in the MDG.