By Robert James
Osun State Governor, Ademola Adeleke, has secretly reduced the number of teachers to be employed into the state teaching service to 1500 from the previous 5000. It would be recalled that Adeleke had said his administration would employ 5000 teachers and told interested candidates to register an examination, conducted by Osun State University. Months after examinations had been conducted and results released, the Adeleke administration has been silent on the next line of action regarding the recruitment.
However, this medium gathered Adeleke had secretly given instructions that not more than 1500 candidates should be employed into primary and secondary schools in the state, notwithstanding the number needed to fill up the existing vacancies in public schools in the state. Sources in the know of the directive from Adeleke had claimed no reason was given yet for Mr. Governor’s decision to reduce the number from the previous 5000 to 1500.
They however expressed worries that reducing the number of teachers to be employed may leave the challenge of inadequate number of teachers in Osun public schools, largely unaddressed. A top civil servant in the Ministry of Education, who craved anonymity, who was privy to the secret instructions that Adeleke had passed to the Ministry handling the recruitment regarding the matter said, “Osun won’t employ 5000 teachers. “What I am telling you is authoritative.
Adeleke has given those handling the recruitment to employ 1500 out about 50,000 that registered for the examination. “No reason was given, but it has been said by the governor that 1500 out of about 15,000 that made the required grade for recruitment should be employed. “Those handling the exercise are in a fix. They don’t know how to go about it and the pressure is piling on them. Before 5,000 as the number of teachers to be recruited was announced, Adeleke said accessment of area of needs was done. “The question to ask is what will now happen to other vacancies that would be left unfilled in schools due to Adeleke’s refusal to employ the needed number of teachers?”
