The Governor of Kwara State, Abdulfatah Ahmed has urged teachers and stakeholders in the education sector to discourage “miracle centres” where students are aided to pass examinations, a situation he likened to murdering of the education system in the country.
Governor Ahmed who made the call at the opening ceremony of the 5th Quadrennial Delegates Conference of the Nigeria Union of Teachers in Kwara State, said such shortcut to success centres pose great dangers to the quality of education in the country as they could have negative impact on all sectors of the national economy.
“Teachers who take pride in promoting miracle centres are destroyers of our nation and the level of such destruction is incalculable. It is like somebody importing fake drugs to sell to hospitals. They are destroying lives”, the governor asserted.
Governor Ahmed said that his administration’s road map for the education sector will engender comprehensive rehabilitation and overhaul of a minimum 40 secondary schools in each of the three senatorial districts of the State.
He said that more teachers would be recruited in order to bring the state’s school system to global standards in teaching quality and teacher-student ratios and that the bonuses of rural teachers would be upscaled to make teaching in the rural areas appealing.
Governor Ahmed said due to the success story of the Education Resource Centre in Ilorin in the production of Science teaching aids, similar centres would be replicated in Kwara North and Kwara South Senatorial districts.
The Governor, described the theme of the teachers conference. “Meeting the Millennium Goals in Education: The Role of Stakeholders and teachers’ motivation as apt, as the Millennium Development Goals seeks to ensure that by 2015 children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling.
The outgoing Chairman Nigeria Union of Teachers, Kwara State Wing, Akanbi Umar Farouk commended the State Government for regular promotion of its work-force, including teachers; a development which he noted motivates teachers in the State.
He, however, appealed to the State government to assist in the clear up of back long of primary school teachers’ backlog of gratuity from the local government account.
