Only 31% of Borno teachers are competent, assessment panel tells Zulum

A committee set up to conduct assessment for local education authority (LEA) teachers in Borno says only 31 percent of teachers in the state are competent to teach.

Babagana Zulum, Borno governor, had tasked the committee with conducting basic literacy and numeracy competency assessment for 17,229 local education authority teachers across the 27 LGAs of the state.

The report was presented to the governor on Thursday at the government house in Maiduguri by Lawan Wakilbe, the Borno commissioner for education.

Assessment tests were said to have been conducted for the teachers in January 2022.

According to the report, out of 17,229 teachers, only 5,439 — representing 31.6% — proved competent to teach, while 3,815 teachers — representing 22.1% — are not competent to teach and are not trainable.

Although 7,975 teachers — representing 46.3% — were found not to be fully competent, the report indicated that they could be trained.

The report also disclosed that 2,389 teachers — representing 13.9% — have been teaching without any formal qualification from any institution.

A further breakdown showed that out of 224 teachers in Abadam LGA, only 14 are competent to teach, 74 are untrainable, while 136 can be trained.

Out of 272 teachers in Kala-Balge LGA, only 21 were identified as competent to teach, 118 of them untrainable, while 133 are said to need training.

“The report also showed indices for other local government areas from which Maiduguri Metropolitan Council had the highest number of 396 untrainable teachers, followed by Askira-Uba with 281 untrainable teachers, Chibok – 268 untrainable teachers, Bama – 246 untrainable teachers and Biu also with 219 teachers who cannot teach,” a statement made available to journalists by the Borno government reads.

“The numbers were based on the overall number of teachers as some with higher numbers of untrainable teachers have a higher number of teachers employed.

“The report also [showed] that of all the 17,229 teachers, 1,627 representing 9.4% are degree holders; 8,153 representing 47.3% are NCE holders; 713 representing 4.1% are teachers grade II certificate holders, while 2,281 representing 13.2% are SSCE/GCE holders, with the remaining 2,389 representing 13.9% not having any formal certificate.”

Reacting to the report, Zulum said the committee members had informed him that they came across an NCE holder who performed woefully during a test, but was teaching students.

“We cannot move Borno forward unless we are able to sanitise our public school system and if I am able to sanitise education, I would have achieved 50% of what I set out to achieve as governor,” he said.

The statement, however, added that Zulum gave assurance that his administration won’t sack the 3,815 untrainable teachers, but “will, depending on the recommendations made by the committee, consider approving the transfer of the teachers to areas where they can perform other tasks such as tree planting at the ministry of environment”.

See photos of the report presentation below.