APC Backs El-Rufai’s Plan To Sack 20,000 Teachers In Kaduna

The Kaduna State chapter of All Progressives Congress, APC, has backed the decision of the state government to sack over 20,000 teachers in the state, saying the move is necessary to reposition the state education.

Organized labour in the state has rejected the plan, insisting that rather than criminalizing deficiency by sacking the teachers, the state government should train them and bring them up to date.

Similarly, the party has given support to the state government to access $350 million loan to address deficiencies in the educational sector.

Addressing journalists in Kaduna at the end of an expanded meeting of the party at the state secretariat, a member of the National Assembly from the state, Garba Datti Muhammad, said the party leadership was satisfied with the explanation given by the state governor for the planned and recruitment of new teachers as well as reasons for the loans.

Muhammad noted that for any society to develop, its teachers must be up to date in their competence, saying: “The entire party is satisfied with the position of Kaduna State Government in salvaging primary school education in the state, by introducing teachers’ competency test and also the professionalization of teaching in the state, devoid of politics and firmly rejecting the employment of unqualified persons as teachers.

“The party agreed that the ongoing recruitment of teachers must be done accordingly without recourse to favoritism and irregular practices and without politicization.”

On the proposed loan from the World Bank, the lawmaker said the “party is satisfied with the explanation of Kaduna State Government over the $350 million loan from World Bank and, therefore, declared its unflinching support to the government of Kaduna State under the leadership of Malam Nasir el-Rufai to access the said facility without delay.

Faulting the planned sack, General Secretary of National Union of Textile, Garment and Tailoring Workers Nigeria, NUTGTW, Comrade Issa Aremu, warned that rather than “criminalizing deficiency” by sacking the teachers, the state government should train them and bring them up to date.

According to Aremu, sacking the teachers was “unacceptable and counter-productive, dramatizing and criminalizing workers’ skill gap when what is required is skills upgrading and skills upgrading is wrong. “