A total of 26,000 individuals applied for the 6,000 smart school job openings in Enugu State.
The evaluation of the applicants is happening concurrently at the Institute of Management and Technology, IMT, Enugu, and the Enugu State College of Education Technical, having started four days ago.
Speaking to reporters at the exercise’s IMT venue, Commissioner for Education Prof. Ndubueze Mbah stated that the exercise was a realisation of the administration of Governor Peter Mbah’s pledge to improve the quality of education in the state.
26,330 individuals applied to the ministry, he revealed, adding that “we had to come up with a bias-free process of evaluating their subject area competency and basic digital literacy proficiency.”
“To be able to do that, we came up with the computer-based test; the exam is running simultaneously at Enugu State College of Education Technical and at the Institute of Management and Technology.
“Everyday, we are testing a minimum of 6,000 candidates at these two centres.”
On the scope of the assessment, the Mbah disclosed that “candidates are evaluated in four areas; the subject area they are going to teach, English language and General Mathematics.
“These two are very important because baseline assessment we did in November last year showed that in Enugu State, two out of every four children in our schools lack basic numerical and literacy proficiency
“It is very important for us to make sure that teachers who shall be teaching our children have basic numeric and literacy proficiency; that’s why we are having general examinations in Mathematics and English.
“They are also being tested on basic digital literacy; if you are a teacher who is going to teach in the smart school, you are going to be using a computer, smart board, we have a digital hybrid library, it is a high-tech environment. We want to make sure that our teachers have at least a basic knowledge of computer.”
He further disclosed that all teachers in Enugu State have been required to apply and that it was open to anyone who met the minimum qualification.
“In every local government, we have applicants; this is a very bias-free and standardized assessment; we want to get teachers who have the content knowledge to teach.
“Out of these 26,330 applicants, we are recruiting 6,000. So the 6,000 who succeed, we are going to put them through six months intensive training and after training them, we will now post them to start schools, which ENSUBEB is going to handle.
“But the criteria of posting is that you can only post persons who have been certified by the ministry of education as smart teachers to the smart schools.
“All the people who succeed through the training will be registered in the teachers’ registry, and it is from that registry that teachers will now be posted to smart schools. So, what we are doing now is Phase 1.
“In January, we will do this again; that is Phase 2, because in total we want to capture at least 12,000 teachers.
“Out of those 12,000 teachers we are going to train, we expect that at least 10,000 should succeed.
“In each smart school, we have 40 teachers, and we have 260 smart schools, so when you do the maths, we are looking at 10,400 and something; if you add more five smart schools, that is 265, which means we will be looking at 10,600 and something teachers for the smart schools.”
The Commissioner said the State Government embarked on the landmark project in order to give the children quality education as could be found in developed parts of the world.
“We are saying that teaching is a profession, in the same way that medicine is a profession; engineering is a profession. When your child is sick, you don’t take them to a quack.
“So, we cannot invest N1 billion to build a smart school, equip it and then put somebody in a classroom that does not have the skill and the necessary knowledge to be able to function in that environment.
“We will be doing a disservice to not only our children but to the entire Enugu state people whose tax money will be used to build and equip these schools.
“In the interest of public good, His Excellency has mandated the ministry to ensure that not only do we recruit qualified candidates but that we give them topnotch training.
“The three months training that the teachers are going to receive involves professionals from across the world, who are coming to Enugu to train them, not only in their subject area of proficiency but also in the use of digital technology to teach and in experiential learning pedagogy, so that our children can learn by doing.
“What we are doing in Enugu state is unprecedented; people thought it is not possible, but we know with our governor, once he dreams it, he makes it possible.”
He ruled out the possibility of politicians hijacking the process, stressing that the governor believes in excellence.
“The assurance I am giving to the Enugu people is that this is a competency based test.
“The only thing is that we will post teachers to the local government areas they are from, in their wards, because one of the things we are trying to tackle is teacher-absenteeism.
“We cannot take someone who has not passed the exam, who has not gone through the training because of any political consideration.
“We cannot do that, this is an express mandate from His Excellency, we have to ensure the integrity of the process, we are talking about the future of our children.”
He additionally stated that non-indigenes of the state are eligible to apply and will be considered on merit.