Bayelsa Government has concluded plans to organise a one-week intensive training and retraining for headmasters and teachers in the state.
Gov. Seriake Dickson announced this at a meeting with education stakeholders at Government House, Yenagoa, on Tuesday.
Dickson said the aim of the programme was to improve on the standard of teaching in public primary schools in the state.
The governor said only those who distinguished themselves at the end of the exercise would be allowed to remain in the school system.
He said the exercise was part of government’s plan to effect drastic changes in the education sector in line with its free and compulsory education policy.
The governor stressed that the teachers would henceforth be regularly exposed to the basic rudiments and modern methods of teaching.
Dickson said that a total of 5,119 teachers and 541 headmasters from public primary schools in the state were expected to be trained, retrained and tested on the skills acquired at the end of the exercise.
He said the Ministry of Education had been directed to; in conjunction with the State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) begin the recruitment of 300 science and ICT teachers to be deployed to all primary and secondary schools in the state.
Commenting on the ratio of non-academic staff members to academic staff members in the primary school system, which was 5,119 teachers to 4,287 non-academic staff, the governor described the situation as worrisome.
He directed an immediate downsizing of the non-academic staff to enable the state government to mobilise funds for other essential needs.
Dickson said that the meeting was convened to take a comprehensive review of the educational sub-sector.
The Commissioner for Education, Mr Salo Adikumo, said the meeting was to enable the stakeholders to rub minds on the way forward.
The Chairman of SUBEB, Mrs Flora Williams-Ebi, expressed the need for a comprehensive re-organisation of the board, noting that a lot of reforms needed to be carried out. (NAN)