bout 800 primary school teachers in Ogun State might loose their job on allegation of certificate forgery.
DailyPost gathered that the state government also discovered about 527 ‘ghost’ teachers and several cases of falsification of age among the primary school teachers in the ongoing teachers’ headcount exercise in the state with majority not having the minimum teaching qualification of the National Certificate of Education, NCE
It was learnt that these discoveries had prompted the state government to conduct similar exercise on the secondary school teachers that targeted at confirming the authenticity of the certificates and attestation letters submitted by about 6,531 teachers during the audit exercise held recently in the state.
DailyPost also gathered that many of the affected teachers, in their attempt to escape being prosecuted or dismissed have since tendered their resignation letters while others have applied for voluntary retirement from service.
Chairman, Ogun State Universal Basic Education Board, Mr. Mufutau Ajibola, while commenting on the development assured that the state government will not accept either the resignation or voluntary retirement letters of such teachers, adding that the state government had resolved to deal with teachers found culpable of the said offence, just in accordance with the law.
“Ogun State will not accept resignation from those who have already been identified as fraudulent. Such cases will be referred to the police and will be
prosecuted. For someone to teach the children when he or she does not have even the minimum qualification is a serious and deliberate act of fraud,not just financial fraud but moral fraud too,” he said.
Ajibola gave a typical example of a teacher who had been presenting a statement of result instead of his original certificate since he was employed in 1978, he said, “Such a case is highly suspicious because in 1978, there was no backlog in the issuance of degree certificates.”
He however assured the affected teachers that they would be given the chance to have their cases reviewied by a panel set up by the state government under the office of the head of service which include representatives of a number of agencies and relevant unions to hear any appeal arising from the exercise.