The Plateau government on Thursday said it had recruited 4,850 ad hoc teachers.

Governor Simon Lalong announced this at the inauguration of model primary schools and an education resource centre in Shehe, Jos.

“In order to meet the human capital requirement, (the) government recruited 4,850 ad hoc teachers and deployed them to basic education schools across the state,” announced the governor. “The government, through the board (State Universal Basic Education), is in the process of recruiting an additional set of ad hoc teachers in collaboration with local government councils.”

According to Mr Lalong, his government will recruit more ad hoc teachers to address the shortage of manpower in the education sector.

The governor also mentioned that his administration trained over 10,000 teachers to improve their capacity and the standard of education in the state. 

Results showed that the teachers selected from the Early Child Care Development, Primary and Junior Secondary Schools contributed immensely to improving literacy levels in schools, said the governor.

“No wonder the Universal Learning Solutions Initiative reported a 65 per cent increase in literacy level in lower Public Primary school learners in the state this year alone,” he said.

Mr Lalong added that he recently approved the release of backlog promotion of primary school teachers as part of efforts toward developing a viable education sector in Plateau.

He said the 800-capacity education resource centre would provide an enabling environment for the capacity development of teachers, saying the facilities would also be available for use by private and public institutions.

(NAN)