Promotion will now be on performance, Ondo SUBEB tells primary school teachers

The Ondo State Universal Basic Education Board has declared that from next year, the promotion of public primary school teachers will be based on their performance and not automatic.

The board also cautioned the teachers against truancy at work, saying any teacher who absconded without formal authorisation would be disciplined.

Mr. Victor Olabimtan, the Executive Chairman of the state SUBEB, stated this during an interactive session with the education secretaries from the 18 Local government areas of the state at the board’s headquarters in Akure.

According to Olabimtan, the directive became necessary in order to improve the performance of public school pupils in common entrance examinations into public secondary schools in the state.

He said that the decision to base teachers’ promotions on performance was made because the state government was dissatisfied with the level of performance of the state’s primary school students in the examinations.

Olabimtan declared, “From next year, no teacher will be promoted to the next grade levels, especially from level 13 and above, without empirical evidence that the wards under them performed very well in their examinations.”

The SUBEB boss pointed out that the state government had made significant investments in the basic education sector through the construction and renovation of over 900 schools and the distribution of free instructional material to pupils, and consequently, the government expects better delivery from teachers and good performance from pupils in all examinations.

The SUBEB boss admonished the education secretaries and head teachers to uphold standards and declared that the government would not hesitate to deal with anyone, no matter how highly placed, who attempted to undermine the established high-performance standard in education for which the state is known..

“All promotions, especially from grade 13 and above will be subjected to performance evaluation by the Board and the Ministry of Education Science and Technology.

“As from the beginning of the new academic session the board is going to invigorate its monitoring and supervisory mechanism by paying unscheduled visits to all the schools in the state to ensure teachers are in classes doing what they were employed to do,” he stated.

The chairman warned teachers who are in the habit of absconding from duties or engaging in selling and buying during school hours to desist from such acts, saying anybody caught in the act will face the music.

“There is credible information that some teachers come to school at will while others do not come at all but employ someone else to do their jobs while engaging in other activities at the detriment of students under their care.

“Some even travelled abroad without appropriate approval. This not acceptable and anybody caught will face the penalties,” he warned.