The Abia Commissioner for Basic and Secondary Education, Mr Goodluck Ubochi, has explained the criteria used for the second batch of teachers’ recruitment in the state.
He addressed the press on Thursday in Umuahia to clarify issues and concerns raised by applicants and the public.
Ubochi said the exercise was designed to bridge the teacher shortage in public primary and secondary schools.
He recalled that Gov. Alex Otti earlier approved the recruitment of 5,000 teachers, but 5,394 were eventually engaged.
According him, said after the first phase, government discovered more vacancies and approved another 4,000 teachers.
He stated that while the first cohort was limited to NCE and B.Ed holders, the second was open to all degree and NCE holders.
He said this was to meet needs in technical, vocational and other subject areas lacking qualified personnel.
Ubochi explained that over 36,000 applications were received and about 21,000 candidates were invited for oral interview after scoring up to 40 per cent in the test.
He said the 40 per cent benchmark was adopted to ensure inclusivity and not to exclude potentially useful candidates.
“Oral interviews were conducted because recruitment could not rely on only one mode of assessment.
“Principals and heads of schools submitted specific subject needs, which were collated from all schools.
“The needs included 911 teachers for primary schools and specific numbers for junior and senior secondary subjects,” the commissioner said.
He said the major challenge was matching qualified candidates with actual vacancies per subject.
Ubochi cited biology as an example, noting that 360 candidates scored above 50.5 per cent but only 260 were needed.
He said to ensure fairness, they ran down the scores until they reached the required number, creating varying cut-off points.
He revealed that this explained why some candidates with 60 per cent were not selected while others with 55 per cent were, depending on subject demand.
The commissioner said in some technical subjects only five people applied and all were taken because the need was higher.
He said the government did not compromise transparency and no commissioner or official had a personal list.
Ubochi disclosed that the orientation for successful candidates would begin on Sept. 7 and run for five to eight days.
He said the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria would train them and they have two years to acquire teaching skills.
He said onboarding with Secondary Education Management Board and Abia State Universal Basic Education Board had started and deployment would be completed before the new academic session.
The commissioner inisisted that about 5,785 candidates met the 50.5 per cent cut-off, but subject-specific needs reduced the final number.
He said remaining qualified candidates would be kept in a pool for future vacancies over the next three years.
