Wednesday, 14 August 2013

Verification: Edo teacher can’t read own certificate




BENIN CITY — IT was drama, Tuesday, at the venue of the verification of certificates of primary school teachers in Edo State, as a teacher in Asologun Primary School, Ikpoba Okha Local Government Area of the state, Mrs. Augusta Odemwinge could not read a sworn affidavit she purportedly tendered as part of her credentials.
The state governor, Mr. Adams Oshiomhole, who paid an unscheduled visit to the state Staff Training Centre, venue of the exercise, said “if you can’t read, what do you teach the pupils, what do you write on the board?”
Chairman of the state Nigeria Union of Teachers, Mr. Patrick Ikosimi, who was also at the screening to monitor the exercise, said that the woman’s failure was “an embarrassment.”
On arrival at the centre, the governor took time to peruse some of the teacher’s credentials and documents presented.
When Mrs. Odenwingie took her turn during the exercise, the governor, who listened to her defence, asked her to read the affidavit she presented, but she stuttered, to the consternation of everybody around.
Ikosimi, who described Mrs. Odemwingie’s failure to read a document she presented as an embarrassment, said the union was in tune with the state government on the need to sanitise the school system.
He said: “We are committed to partnering the government to reposition education in the state. What this teacher has just displayed is a show of shame; it shows the decadence in the education sector.
“As the chairman of NUT, I had written to the governor that we are in total support of what he is doing.
“He should properly involve the NUT, so that together we can fish out the culprits, who are not viable as far as the system is concerned,” he said.  
     The teacher, when asked to repeat a sentence she didn’t read well replied in ‘pigin’ English saying “make I start am afresh”.

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