Plateau may sack 155 teachers over dual appointments – Official

The Plateau Government has threatened to sack 155 teachers recently found to be holding appointments in both the local and state governments.
Chief Vonjen Lar, Chairman, Plateau State Teachers Service Commission, told the News Agency of Nigeria on Thursday in Jos that the teachers were among the 834 engaged in February 2017, to teach in secondary schools.
Lar said: “After employing them, we found that they were already engaged as primary school teachers by the State Universal Basic Education Board.
“By their attitude, the teachers have violated the civil service rule number 030402 (q), which frowns at holding two government appointments at the same time.
“What these teachers have done is a gross misconduct punishable by outright dismissal.
“It is a common law that you can’t be working in two places within the same civil service. You have to resign one before taking up the other. It is criminal to keep the two.”
He said that government was categorical about this, while advertising the teaching job.
He said: “When we advertised the vacancies, we were categorical that anyone already working with either the local or state government need not apply because it will be against the civil service rule.
“Surprisingly, when we completed the recruitment processes, we discovered that 90 permanent teachers and 65 ad-hoc teachers already engaged by SUBEB were among those we employed to teach in our secondary schools.”
He said that the teachers were discovered when a soft copy of the names of the 834 newly employed teachers was sent to SUBEB for scrutiny.
Lar said: “Some of the teachers have requested the transfer of their services from the local government to state government; clearly, this is not possible because of the embargo placed on such transfers by the government.
“If they will be allowed to switch, it will not be on transfer basis; they can only come in as fresh employees.
“We have asked the affected teachers to fill forms indicating an agreement with our terms or remain where they were before we engaged them.”
He described the attitude as “bad”, pointing out that schools would resume next week and be hit by the confusion.
He said: “Schools will resume next and face the crisis of teachers not being at their duty posts because they are neither here nor there. Can you imagine the effect of that situation on the pupils or students?
“Teachers are supposed to be people of high integrity, but these ones are fraudulent.”
Lar advised the affected teachers to report to the commission “in their own interest”.