‘Kaduna has shortfall of 25,000 teachers’

The Executive Chairman of Kaduna State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB), Alhaji Nasiru Umar, has said with 2.2 million primary school pupils, the state has a shortfall of about 25,000 teachers.

He said this when the National Assembly Committee on Basic Education, led by Istifanus Gyang representing Barikin Ladi/Riyom Federal Constituency in Plateau State, visited the board as part of its oversight function.

He said in some schools in the urban areas, pupil-teacher ratio was 200:1 which outweighed the 50:1 in the rural areas.

He said that nothing less than N93 billion was needed to address infrastructural deficit in the state’s primary schools. A figure, he said, that was based on the survey conducted in 2014 to ascertain the level of infrastructural decay in the basic education sector.

He said 3,000 classrooms were overstretched by the surge in number of pupils in primary schools but with only 37,004 teachers.

He also explained that the state accessed N2.8 billion from the 2013 to 2015 Universal Basic Education Commission capital grant, saying the projects for 2013 were all executed; those of 2014 were ongoing, while contracts for 2015 capital projects would be awarded.

“Contract for the provision of school chairs is already about 60 percent completed. The state government in