60% of Gombe public primary school teachers ‘not qualified’

The transition committee set up by Inuwa Yahaya, the Gombe state governor-elect, 60% of teachers in the state primary schools are unqualified.

Mohammed Kabir, chairman of the committee, made this known on Saturday while presenting the report of the committee to Yahaya.

The 31-member committee said its findings also showed that the teacher-student ratio in secondary school is 1:150 and 1:350 for sciences instead of 1:45.

He added that their findings revealed that 77% of school-aged children were out-of-school as at 2017 while the state ranked top with 21% of its population involved in drug abuse.

The committee was inaugurated on April 3 to organise a smooth transition of government from the Ibrahim Dankwambo, the outgoing governor.

“There is a very huge interest-bearing debt compared to the state government’s revenue profile,” Kabir said.

“It is estimated based on available information that as at December 2018, the total debt which included domestic, contractors, as well as pension, was about N110 billion.

“Our terms of reference include a review of finances of the state government with particular reference to the status of assets, liabilities, domestic and external debts and outstanding contractual obligations and the ability to honour its obligations.”

The chairman said the committee did not receive handover note from the outgoing administration in compiling the report.

“We were supposed to be given handover note but unfortunately as I speak to you now, we are yet to get it.

“In the absence of the handover note, the committee relied on their wealth of knowledge, experience and access to information in preparing the report,” he said.

Kabir urged the incoming administration to hold town hall meetings to explain the true state of things to the people.