The Enugu State Government has sacked 16 of the 17 local government education secretaries in the state, the Commissioner for Information, Dr Godwin Udeuhele, has said.
Udeuhele said in Enugu on Saturday that the decision was taken by the state Executive Council at a meeting on Friday night.
He said that the action became necessary to inject fresh ideas and impetus to the administration’s resolve of enhancing basic education in the state.
The commissioner said that only the education secretary of Awgu Local Government, who was appointed few months ago, would remain in office.
“The termination of appointments of the local government education secretaries with the exception of that of Awgu is to enhance and strengthen development of basic education in the state,” he said.
Udeuhele blamed the decay in the basic education system of the state on the education secretaries, who he alleged connived with past local government chairmen to bring the system down.
As part of efforts to strengthen the sector, the commissioner said that the council also approved the recruitment of 2,000 primary school teachers to enhance teaching and learning.
“Those to be employed must have a minimum qualification of National Certificate on Education from recognised institutions.
“This recruitment must reflect, at least, 100 persons each from the 17 local government areas of the state and should be evenly spread across the 260 electoral wards in the state,” he said.
Udeuhele said that the recruitment had already begun and would be completed before the commencement of the new academic session.
He urged interested applicants with relevant teaching qualifications to take advantage of the recruitment to be gainfully employed, adding that there was no age limit.
“We have 260 political wards in the state though all the local government areas don’t have equal number of ward but we insisted that it must be spread to accommodate the locals.
“Over the past years when you post a teacher to the rural area they quickly move to the urban centres; then the schools in the rural areas suffer.
“As a result, we decided that if you come to a local government and know the number of political wards what you do is to spread that number to cover it and preferably post them to those areas they are from,” Udeuhele said.