Taraba State Commissioner for Education, Mr. Johanes Jigem, on Wednesday, said the government would soon recruit 3,000 professional teachers to address the shortage of teachers in the state`s secondary schools.
Jigem disclosed this at the commissioning of the State Chapter of the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) Lodge in Karim-Lamido Local Government Area.
He said the recruitment, which was under the “Taraba State Teachers Rescue Scheme,” would provide at least 10 teachers to each of about 262 public secondary schools in the state.
The commissioner said the teachers to be recruited would be holders of National Certificates of Education (NCE) and Bachelors of Education (B.Ed.) while non-professionals might be considered thereafter.
Jigem announced that the government had resolved to pay the salaries of teachers whose names were not captured in its payroll either by commission or omission.
He said the resolution was on compassionate ground because the affected teachers had undergone untold hardship due to the non-payment of their salaries.
Earlier, the state’s NUT Chairman, Alhaji Aliyu Mafindi, said the lodge was built through the Teachers Development Levy and Teachers Welfare Scheme to generate revenue for the union.
He noted that the lodge was the second commercial lodge in Karim-Lamido, saying that it would ameliorate accommodation challenges for visitors to the area.
Mafindi said the NUT had earlier commissioned prototypes of the lodge in Jalingo and Bali local councils, while the project had reached advanced level of completion in Wukari.
The chairman said he would soon inaugurate a committee to monitor the lodges quarterly to ensure they were properly maintained.(NAN )