DEARTH OF TEACHERS HIT DELTA

BY DEBORAH COKER

Recently Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan of Delta announced that he would soon lift the embargo he placed on the recruitment of teachers in the state
The governor on assumption of office in May last year banned the recruitment of all categories of workers into the state public service on account of a very high wage bill and dwindling resources.
The governor’s action, however, had a double edge effect, when some teachers started leaving the service for various reasons ranging from death to resignation and retirement.
The situation was such that as the state government was checking its rising wage bill, vacancies were created in the various public primary and post-primary schools.
This resulted in acute shortage of teaching staff in the Delta public schools and the pupils and students were the losers in the unfolding scenario.
The Delta Commissioner for Education, Mrs. Elizabeth Uvoh-Gardner, did acknowledge the acute shortage of teachers in the state’s public schools’ system.
At a stakeholders meeting earlier this year, Uvoh-Gardner said that senior secondary schools in the state required more than 3,094 teachers for the various subjects in order to function effectively.
The situation in the junior secondary schools is worse, as the number of teachers required to stabilize the sector is put at more than 4,132 teachers.
A break down of the figure for senior secondary schools in Delta showed 308 new teacher would be needed to teach English Language.
No less than 433 new Mathematics teachers are required, while 100 will be needed to teach Physics, nine for Chemistry, 48 for Geography, one for Economics and 104 for Christian Religious Studies.

The figures, which were given by the Delta Ministry of Education, also showed that 269 teachers are needed to teach Fine Art in Delta schools and 113 for Government.
Others are Accounts 224, History 265, French 319, Commerce 97, Physical and Health Education 331, Home Economics 188 and Guidance and Counseling 322.
In the junior secondary schools, 253 teachers are required to teach English Language, 299 for Mathematics, Agricultural Science 54, Physical and Health Education 243, Integrated Science 117, French 325, Home Economics 200 and Christian Religious Studies 154.
Other subject areas where teachers are needed in the junior secondary schools are Fine Art 291, Introductory Technology 333, Computer Science 453, Music 42,9, Local Languages 492, and Nigeria Languages 489.
The Chairman of the Delta State Post Primary Education Board (PPEB), Mrs. Evelyn Aluta, had also confirmed the shortage of teachers in the state.
She said that in spite of the more than 16,000 teachers in the state and in spite of efforts to re-distribute teachers from area of plenty to areas of need, the shortage in the system had persisted.
In his assessment, the Chairman of the Academic Staff Union of Secondary Schools (ASUSS) in Delta, Dr John Nwachokor, said that a state of emergency should be declared in the education sector in the state.
Nwachokor said that after declaring the state of emergency, the state government should hold an education summit, and all stakeholders invited to contribute, instead of a few selected ones.
He also said that the government should stop complaining about examination malpractice, when there were no teachers to teach the students.
He further said that the situation was worrisome because the sector was 44 years behind what obtained in the sector in the 1960s.

Nwachokor appealed to the state government to, as a matter of urgency, recruit more teachers.
He said that the government had been promising to recruit more teachers for sometime, but that nothing had been done or seen since the promise was made.
The Secretary of the Nigerian Union of Teachers in Delta, Mr. Eddie Uloho, confirmed what the ASUSS chairman said that government had been making promises to recruit more teachers.
He said that up till now nothing had been one and appealed to the government to expedite action in recruiting more teachers,' adding that the dearth of teachers was a major problem to the education sector.
Uloho further said that a situation where teachers were made to teach subjects outside their areas of specialisation did not augur well for the system, adding that the teachers were being over stretched.
Uloho said that between January and October the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) in Delta lost 313 members, as 186 of them retired, 108 died and 19 withdrew their services.
He said that the state government was yet to fill the vacant positions.
Uduaghan had given the assurance that his administration would do everything possible to address the problems plaguing the education sector.
The government went further to say that the teachers to be employed would be deployed to the rural and river side areas of the start were the shortage is most felt.
The question being asked by stakeholders is how soon? And it is hoped that the governor in his usual ways will not disappoint the people

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