Plateau PTA Chairman decries shortage of teachers, seeks urgent recruitment

The Parent Teacher Association (PTA) Chairman, Sylvester Yakubu, on wednesday in jos  decried the acute shortage of teachers in public schools, describing the situation as “ unbearable.’’

Yakubu, while expressing dismay at the situation, called on the new administration of Gov. Simon Lalong to recruit more teachers to save the public schools.

He said the number of teachers was not adequate for effective teaching and learning, stressing that such situation was responsible for the falling standard of education in the state.

“When teachers are over burdened, it impedes their ability to discharge their duties and quality suffers,’’

“What we have is a situation where the number of students goes up while the number of teachers shrinks every day.

“We tried in vain to convince the former administration to recruit more teachers, but it did not listen to us; we hope the new government will heed our cry,’’ he said.

The PTA boss said that his association had to augment the number of teachers by recruiting more than 80 per cent of teachers serving in the 305 public secondary schools.

He urged Lalong to make the recruitment of teachers his priority.

“There is quality manpower idling away; government should engage teachers to feed the schools and also reduce unemployment,’’ he said.

He urged leaders to make education a top priority, pointing out that this was the only way to guarantee a better future for the youths and the nation.

it was also reported that a former Commissioner for Education, Dr Nanle Dashen, had disclosed last month that the state has 4,000 teachers, some 7,000 short of the 11,000 required by the public schools.

NAN