80% of education ministry staff use "forged certificates' | EduCeleb
EduCeleb
21st September 2020
The Niger State government said that 80 per cent of the staff employed in the State Ministry of Education got employed into the civil service with forged certificates.
The Chairman of a Screening Committee set up by the State Government, Ibrahim Mohammed Panti, made this disclosure on Sunday.
Panti, spoke in Minna, said five members of staff of the State College of Education, Minna have been arrested by the Police and had made useful statements while investigations continued.
The Chairman, who is also State Commissioner for Works, said the principal actor of a syndicate behind printing of the fake Certificates of the COE, Minna has been arrested by the state Police Command.
In his words, “The suspected printer had admitted during interrogation that he had printed and sold out unspecified number of such fake Certificates to many students, which they have used and still using to secure employment within and outside the State.
“And most of those uncovered to be having the fake certificates could not even write their names correctly neither could they communicate in simple English language.
“The screening had been so revealing as 80 per cent staff of the state Ministry of Education are not genuinely certificated because during the exercise, many of them could not even write their names and could not also speak correct English.
“Most of them are teachers and one would wonder the type of knowledge they would have been imparting on the students.”
The Commissioner declared that all those involved have been sacked and will be replaced soonest with those having genuine Certificates.
Panti added that, “All the vacancies are going to be filled with people with genuine Certificates.”
“The essence of the screening was to determine the actual staff strength of our workers and block all wastage through over bloated salaries.
“Certainly, the final outcome of the screening will be beneficial to our graduates because many of them genuinely certificated will be employed.”
Panti disclosed that though he and members of the Screening Committee had been threatened several times by some faceless people suspected to be part of the culprits, “the Committee members will not be deterred in concluding the assignment given to them by the government”.