Edo teachers dare govt over test

Edo State Governor, Adams Oshiomhole

The chairman Edo State chapter of the Nigerian Union of Teachers, Mr. Mike Uhunmwangho, said on Thursday  in Benin that its members would not sit for any competency test conducted by the state government, the News Agency of Nigeria reported.

He said NUT members would not sit for any test because a court had restrained the state government   from conducting the test.

He said, “The next court sitting on the matter comes up on April 12 in Akure.”

Uhunmwangho said those who sat for the recently-conducted assessment test were not teachers but government officials.

He added, “Those of them who went for the test are commissioners and  other government officials. We are not going to write any test, even if given a second chance.”

The state governor, Adams Oshiomhole, while receiving the report of the Teachers Assessment Committee on April 2, said the test was compulsory for all teachers.

He said any public school teacher who had not taken the assessment test would not remain on the payroll of the government.

He added that  “there is no stopping the teachers’ assessment test.”

The governor stressed that the government would conduct another assessment test for those who were yet to seat for the test.

The governor, however, gave the teachers two weeks within which to comply.

Uhunmwangho said the NUT was waiting for the government to sack those who did not take the test.

He said, “It will be a world headline that the Edo State Government sacked about 17,000 teachers in the state pubic primary and secondary schools because of their refusal to write an assessment test.

He had already sacked 925 teachers.

“Why are Nigerians not asking that the same measure be use for other workers on the state’s payroll?

“Why is it that it is only teachers that are affected because it was all the workers in Edo state that participated in the state organised biometrics?

“If he believes that he cannot follow the law that brought him into power, we leave the issue to the people who know the law better.”

He added that there were no chairs, tables and laboratories in most of the renovated schools in the state, stressing that those were pressing issues that needed to be tackled .