El-Rufai blows hot, says he won’t recall sacked 22,000 Kaduna teachers

Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State, has vowed not to recall the over 22,000 teachers sacked in the state.

The governor, who spoke in Abuja, on Tuesday, also stressed that the ongoing reforms in the education sector in his state would be sustained.

El-Rufai said the affected teachers were sacked because they were unqualified based on the Education Sector Support Programme in Nigeria (ESSPIN) report he received.

He disclosed that the report showed that 83 per cent of the teachers scored less than 25 per cent in maths and literacy exams.

The governor insisted that the challenges confronting the state education sector were that of self-interest.

He said, “They told us that we are going to lose the election if we continue with what we were doing but we said, it is better to lose the election because until we fix this problem, we do not have a future. Nobody should blame the federal government for poor education and healthcare, the state government should be blamed because it is the responsibility of the state.

“It is unfortunate that the products of public schools gave up on public schools. They have allowed unqualified people to be employed in public schools because there children are part of these schools.

“About 58% of the of the teachers they presented to us that were qualified had some contents of fake certificates. Out of the 36,000 teachers that sat for the promotion examination, 2,000 failed. We want to set a standard for our children in Kaduna State and there is no going back on our reforms.”