In its effort towards sanitizing the education sector of the state, the Ogun State Government on Wednesday suspended the services of no fewer than 1,024 teachers for allegedly engaging in fraudulent and irregular activities like forgery and manipulation of credentials. The suspension is with immediate effect.
Few weeks ago, the state government engaged all its 6,531 teachers in a screening exercise conducted by CITC Consulting firm, which verified the statement of results and attestation letters from over 50 higher institutions across the country submitted by the teachers.
The firm’s final report which lead to the suspension revealed that 475 teachers possessed forged certificates and did not have their attestation letters confirmed by the originating institutions.
Furthermore, 274 were suspended for not appearing for the screening exercise, 236 for being totally unqualified, 12 for exceeding statutory length of service, and 11 for age discrepancies.
It was also discovered that 14 deceased teachers were still being paid salaries while 2 others were impostors.
Reacting to the suspension, the Chairman, State Universal Basic Education Board, Mufutau Ajibola said the suspension takes immediate effect pending formal determination of their cases by the panel established in the Office of the Head of Service.
Ajibola noted that the board is compiling documents to be presented to the State Police Command for possible criminal prosecution of those indicted during the exercise.
The State Commissioner for Education, Science and Technology, Segun Odubela had earlier said thus “ all our investments to provide affordable quality education will only yield result if we have well qualified and motivated teachers in our classrooms.”
Odubela affirmed that the exercise was about quality assurance on human capital.
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