FACTUAL REVELATION: NIGERIA - Enugu school where teachers rarely come to work

If truancy is sin, then many teachers in Uzo-Uwani LGA, Enugu State, are hell-bound. Beam your searchlight on public schools in the area and you will
discover that many teachers stay away from school, yet smile to the banks every month. The ‘ghost’ teachers live in faraway urban cities and sneak into their schools at month’s end to collect their pay cheques.
Education Review reporter made this stunning discovery during recent visit to schools in the area. Findings showed that majority of teachers in the 14 secondary schools located in the area live in cities, a situation that makes them habitually absent from work.
The former Head of Department (HOD), Supervision, Post-Primary School Management Board (PPSMB), Nsukka Zone, Chief Oliji Simon, confirmed the sad development, noting that most teachers in the area, including principals, go to school two or thrice in a week.
“It is a very sad situation,” he said. “Over 90 per cent of them live at Nsukka and Onitsha, Anambra State. They go to school at their convenient time. If the Principal fails to go to school, there will be no school for most of them. Only very few teachers live at Umulokpa, Adani and Ukpata.”


Findings also indicate that the FOTON school buses donated to the secondary schools in the area by the state government had been converted to personal use by principals. During fuel scarcity, they stay away from school, for as long as the scarcity lasts.
A female teacher in one of the schools, who pleaded for anonymity for fear of victimisation, said some teachers in the area are mostly part-time staff. According to her, they combine their teaching jobs with more lucrative careers in the cities. “Principals protect these ghost teachers,” she lamented. “In our school, the Principal informs them whenever supervisors are coming for inspection. Otherwise, they come to school mostly at the end of the month to sign for their pay cheques and to settle the Principal for protecting their interest.”
Worried by the situation, Oliji, who was a former Principal of many public schools before his retirement, urged the government to motivate the teachers living in rural areas by placing them one financial step above their counterparts in the cities. According to him, such incentive would encourage more teachers to reside in remote communities and to discharge their duties effectively.


Beside the menace of truancy among teachers, Education Review gathered that lack of sufficient teachers has compounded the misery of most rural schools. Investigation carried out in the 14 public secondary schools in Uzo-Uwani LGA revealed a student population of 3, 891 with only 216 teachers. There are only 50 science teachers in the schools in the area.
When this reporter visited Adada Secondary School, Nkpologu, with a population of 244 students, only 21 teachers were available. At Uzo-Uwani Secondary School, Adani, 22 teachers have to cater for 531 students in both the junior and secondary sections.
The situation was worse at Attah Memorial High School, Adaba, where nine teachers teach 134 pupils. The school has no Chemistry, Mathematics and Biology teachers, yet, students register for science subjects in their SSCE. Similar findings were made at the GSS, Umulokpa, with no teacher available for Chemistry, Physics and Biology. With 145 students in the school, teaching becomes a vocation of agony for the 11 teachers posted to the area. At Community Secondary School, Ogbosu, Umulokpa, there were only four serving teachers.


For the 24 teachers in Community Secondary School Abbi Ugbene, nothing could be more tasking than teaching 634 students spread across different classes and stream. It is the same situation in Community Secondary School, Nimbo. Only 26 members of teaching staff were available for 525 students. The school has no Chemistry teacher, despite the fact that majority of the 109 students in SS3 are offering science subjects.
More distressing is the state of Welfare Secondary School, Opanda/Nimbo, where the students do not have any teacher in English Language, Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Agric Science. Also, students of Jeorose CSS, Ogba-Nkpologu, have no teacher in Physics, Chemistry and Biology.
Further breakdown of the staff strength of these schools scattered in different communities revealed that they have only 17 Mathematics teachers in both the junior and senior sections. More shocking was the fact that these 14 schools could only boast of seven Physics, four Chemistry, seven Biology and 15 Agric Science teachers.

High failure rate in exams

The truant behaviour of some of the teachers, coupled with the under-staffing in key subject areas have brought huge drain on the overall performance of the students in public examinations like the Junior WAEC, West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE), NECO-SSCE, as well as the Universities Matriculation Examination (UME). A senior Mathematics lecturer, Federal College of Education, Ehamufu, Enugu State, Dr Robert Ezike, explained that poor attitude of teachers to work has a multiplier effect on their students. “When there is no effective teaching and learning, there will be effective ignorance, examination malpractice, hooliganism and under-development of human resources,” he joked.

How to trap truant teachers

Counting on his vast experience as a former school Principal, Oliji advised people living in rural communities to set up a monitoring committee for schools located within their area so as to report errant teachers to the appropriate authority. He urged local communities to take ownership of rural schools seriously, adding that children in these areas would suffer, at the end of the day, if serious steps were not taken to keep the teachers in classrooms.
“The communities that own the schools must be involved in their development, not waiting for the government,” he advised. “A one-day meeting should be organized for principals, the chairmen of School Board Management Committee (SBMC), of Parents Teachers Associations of various schools and traditional rulers of the various towns where these schools are located.”

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