No fewer than 79 schools in the Misau Local Government Area of Bauchi State have only one teacher each, teaching all subjects.
The Director, School Services, Bauchi State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB), Korijo Umar, disclosed this while answering questions from journalists during a media chat organised by the United Nations Children Fund on the enrollment drive of out-of-school children in Misau and Alkaleri Local Government Areas (LGAs).
At the Central Primary School, Misau LGA, Usman said many schools in the LGA and across the state have inadequate teachers.
“In Misau, there are 79 schools that have only one teacher each, while there are zero schools with no teacher. All the schools have teachers, except that they are not adequate.
“Misau is even better compared to others. Go to some other schools and see the situation there. So, what we do is find out where they are congested, and we ask them to redeploy and post them to other places. And that is what we told them from SUBEB: if they see a school with many teachers, they should move to two or three other schools, depending on the number there.
“If you go to the Bauchi metropolis, you’ll see that there are classes with even 150 or 200, even 220 and 250 pupils with only a teacher”.
Asked what SUBEB was doing to address the problem, Umar said: “SUBEB does not employ teachers. What we do is only post teachers to schools. The Teachers Service Commission is saddled with the responsibility of employing teachers in collaboration with SUBEB”.
