By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Surplus manpower in Oyo State has led to more than 400 PhD holders having to teach in low paying public secondary schools compared with what they could earn in higher institutions where they properly belong.
Post-Primary School Teaching Service Commission (TESCOM) Chairman, Akinade Alamu, made the disclosure to The Nation while explaining the standard used in the recent recruitment of 5,000 secondary school teachers in the state.
Holders of PhD degrees are meant to lecture in polytechnics and universities where they can match and improve their academic skills in research that will move them up to the professorial level.
There are 10 universities in Oyo (one federal, two-state, seven private), the second-highest number after Delta with 11 (two federal, four states, five private).
It is an irony that highly educated personnel are being under-unemployed in secondary schools in a country with 198 universities.
Alamu told The Nation that 140,000 candidates applied for jobs but only 6,500 scored 50 per cent and above in the computer-based test (CBT) conducted to screen them.
Only 5,000 were employed after passing oral interviews and credential scrutiny.
TESCOM Permanent Secretary Grace Oderinde disclosed that 167 of the newly recruited teachers hold PhD degrees in various fields, raising the number teaching in secondary schools to more than 400.
She said 550 of the successful candidates are non-indigenes of Oyo State because Governor Seyi Makinde insisted that only the best must be recruited irrespective of the state of origin.
“The governor had no candidate. He directed that anyone to be recruited must pass the test and make the cut-off point. It didn’t matter if the candidate was the governor’s brother or sister.
“With that, TESCOM has set the standard, and I am sure that other agencies will emulate us. This government values merit because of its commitment to bringing the desired change into the system,” Oderinde stressed.
She explained that 400 applicants hold first-class degrees in various disciplines and those who did not study education are given two years to complete a post-graduate diploma in the discipline.
The new teachers were posted according to the needs of the zones across the state, she added.