Following the heat generated by the exercise in the state, the Akwa Ibom government announced the recruitment of 1,000 teachers into the state teaching service.
Already, the state’s Ibeno Local Government Area has reportedly taken the state government to court over the recruitment of a few of its indigenes during the exercise.
The state government, on the other hand, explained that the recent recruitment of teachers into public secondary schools in the state was done to ensure quality education, not to fill quotas from the state’s 31 local government areas.
Dr. Ekaette Ebong Okon, Chairman of the Akwa Ibom State Secondary Education Board, provided the explanation yesterday while fielding questions from journalists in Uyo, the state capital.
She insisted that the purpose of the exercise was to hire qualified teachers based on predetermined criteria, not to ensure equal representation of local government areas in the teaching profession.
“We followed the governor’s guidelines for the recruitment of 1,000 teachers,” Okon said. The governor was not looking for local government quota slots for anyone, but rather for quality and qualified teachers who could assist the school system in the education sector.”
She regretted that some local government areas felt cheated because many of their indigenous residents were not considered for appointment to the state teaching service.
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According to her, Ibeno LGA has sued the state government for hiring only six of its indigenes out of a total of 278 applicants for the teaching position, and she expressed concern that the Ijaw Youth Council had joined the suit.
Abak had 1,956, Eastern Obolo 52, Eket 1,715, Esit Eket 621, Essien Udim 2,511, and Etim Ekpo 1,474 in her statistics of the exercise of some council areas.
Etinan had 1,938 applicants, Ibeno had 278, Ibesikpo had 1,835, Ibiono Ibom had 2,270, and Uyo LGA had 4,867.
She recalled that Governor, Udom Emmanuel, had declared a state of emergency in the education sector, which includes addressing infrastructure deficits and recruiting more teachers in public schools to help the government complete its education agenda.
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