FG set to recruit 500,000 teachers

The federal government says it would soon commence the recruitment of 500,000 graduates as teachers, in various institutions of learning across the country.

Minister of state for Education, Professor Anthony Anwuka gave this notification shortly after leading officials of the ministry to the defence of the 2016 budget before the senate committee on education.

The 500,000 recruitment policy for graduate teachers was part of the campaign promises of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) during the 2015 Presidential election, and the Minister of state for Education insists that the government is not going back on its promise to Nigerians.

“Those who are not qualified, they will be recruited may be given a provisional appointment but they must attend the training required to be in our classrooms. So, from now on, if you are not qualified to be a teacher, by our preparation to be a teacher, you will not be in our classroom. So if you are aspiring to be employed under the present 500,000 teachers’ appointment scheme then you must acquire a teaching qualification in order to benefit but if you don’t acquire it, then you must go for a training to qualify before you benefit from the project.”

On measures being put in place to ensure that the policy succeeds, Professor Anwuka who is also a former Vice Chancellor of the Imo state university in south east Nigerian said, “We are working on it because we now have new hands on deck. Be assured that we would work on it to the satisfaction of Nigerians,” he stressed.

He reiterated Federal government’s commitment to repositioning the tertiary education sub-sector in order to meet specific needs of the dynamic world. Professor Anwuka assured Nigerians that the teachers’ recruitment exercise was part of measures to provide quality education to the citizenry.