ONDO State Governor, Hon. Lucky Orimisan Aiyedatiwa, recently approved the immediate distribution of appointment letters to 1,010 secondary school teachers across the state. This was announced by the Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, Prince Ebenezer Adeniyan.

GOVERNOR Aiyedatiwa granted the appointment approval 48 hours after authorising the release of ₦633.9 million for the payment of the 2025 West African Examinations Council (WAEC)  Examination registration fees for 23,048 public secondary school students in the state.

THIS recruitment fulfills the governor’s promise to address the shortage of teachers in public secondary schools, while also reducing youth unemployment. This large-scale appointment is commendable given the fact that no nation or state can grow above the level of its education standard as education remains the basis of development in any country which qualified teachers play pivotal roles.

THIS  bold initiatives have further justified the commitment of  Aiyedatiwa to revamping the education sector across the state as final arrangements are being made to recruit no fewer than 1,100 teachers into the state primary schools.

IN his inaugural speech, the governor emphasised his commitment to providing quality education for all. He stated: “Education, human capital development, and entrepreneurship: Huge investments in education and skills development shall be prioritised while also promoting social protection programmes and enhancing access to social services for our citizens.

“WE will ensure that our citizens continue to have access to quality education and vocational skills training, enabling them to compete in the global economy and drive economic growth in our dear state. Our administration shall invest more in critical infrastructure in our primary and secondary schools, ensuring the availability of functional libraries and laboratories.”

FOR a fact, one of the challenges of the education sector in Nigeria is poor funding. While most public schools lack adequate professional teachers, the private ones engage unqualified teachers. In public schools, there has been little effort from the government to recruit teachers to fill the void left by those retiring. According to the 2022-2023 UBEC National Personnel Audit report, there is a shortage of 194,876 teachers in public primary schools across the country. The report showed that only 499,202 out of the 694,078 teachers required at the primary schools  are available. A similar sad tale is being told among secondary schools and tertiary institutions.

PAST experience has shown a severe shortage of teachers in over 300 public secondary schools across the state, particularly in rural areas. Some schools have  principals  and one or two other teachers, with no instructors for essential subjects such as English Language, Mathematics, Physics, and Chemistry. In some cases, security guards who have been in the system for a long time were often times drafted  as teachers. We see this as a crisis waiting to happen and appeal to the present administration in the State to address this urgently.

WHILE we commend Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa for prioritising education in his developmental agenda for the state with the recent payment of public school students’ WAEC fees, The Hope urges the state government to expedite action on the recruitment of more qualified teachers into primary schools especially those at the remote areas.

BESIDES, The Hope appeals to the State government to address lack of  infrastructure  and other needs in the state public schools such as internet access, well equipped modern libraries, sporting equipments among others that will make public schools the choice of all. We also appeal to the State government to address an ugly trend among teachers who abandon their duty posts  in the rural areas. We observed that teachers who could not lobby to be redeployed to the cities, especially Akure, the state capital, are fond of jettisoning their duty posts at the expense of the pupils they are paid to train. This unpatriotic behaviour has not only significantly affected the educational development of the pupils in the underserved communities but has also dealt a big blow to the future ambitions of the pupils  in the leading to general low performance of students in Ondo  State.

THE Hope lauds Governor Aiyedatiwa’s bold steps at making public schools in the state attractive and competitive through various developmental policies, as we urge him to do more.

We equally congratulate the newly recruited teachers and charge them to be dedicated and consider themselves lucky to have been employed among many others; by discharging their assigned duties with all responsibilities, bearing in mind that they are moulding the future leaders.