EXTRA: Bauchi teacher visited school ‘7 times in 11 years’

Aliyu Tilde, commissioner of education in Bauchi, says a teacher in the state only went to work seven times in 11 years.

Tilde, who neither disclosed the name of the teacher nor the school, said about 53.5 percent of workers do not visit their places of assignment, which affects the educational sector

He said to curb absenteeism among teachers, the state government introduced a digital attendance system in primary and secondary schools.

Tilde said the fingerprint machine will capture workers’ daily attendance and also help to reduce ghost workers in the state.

He said any teacher who scores low on the attendance register will not be paid for the month.

“We now have the device in all the 219 secondary schools under the ministry. We have had a case of a teacher who only came to school seven times in eleven years,” Tilde said.

“When I came in, I requested for attendance register of various schools and the statistics there was not encouraging at all; 53.5 per cent of them (teachers) do not go their work place at all.

“People are now less honest than before and given their large number, many of them can hide, a lot of them are in the rural areas where it is difficult to reach them for monitoring and evaluation.

“You find out that by the time you take up their attendance book, everyone is present and resumed work before 8:am even if he or she wasn’t there.

“It is very difficult to monitor these large number of workers, the best thing is to introduce technology. With this, you will be able to capture all the teachers within your purview; if anyone goes in, delivers a lesson or checks out, it will be recorded in the device.”