By Nwafor Okafor
A little above 6,000 out of 40,000 applicants have scaled through in the Anambra State teachers’ recruitment examination ordered by the state governor, Prof Chukwuma Soludo, for employment of both primary and secondary school teachers in the state school system.
The state’s Commissioner for information, Mr Paul Nwosu, disclosed this on Wednesday in a statement after this week’s Anambra State Executive Council (ANSEC) meeting held at Government House, Awka.
He said ANSEC resolved that following the last teachers’ Computer Based Test(CBT) a total of 6,250 candidates had been shortlisted for oral interview for teaching jobs in primary and secondary schools across the state.
He said 3,250 would be deployed to primary schools while 3,000 would be for secondary schools ; stressing that the oral interviews had been scheduled to commence on the 27th of July, 2022 and would last for two weeks,.
He added, “The interviews which will come in batches will hold at Igwebuike Grammar School Awka; St John of God Secondary School, Awka and Anambra State Universal Basic Education Board( ASUBEB) Awka.”
Our correspondent gathered that the recruitment exercise which was so rigorous and somewhat controversial involved no fewer than 40,000 applicants who had applied to become teachers in the state school system, but about 31,000 were shortlisted for examination.
When confusion trailed the first CBT dues to clash of the website,
Soludo ordered the repeat of the online recruitment examination as majority of the candidates had complained that the system broke down even before they could log in for the examination due to network failure.
The situation made the participants and other stakeholders to allege that the website malfunction alibi was a deliberate attempt to shut them out of the exams for preferred candidates to be picked.
Although, the Commissioner for Education, Prof. Ngozi Chuma-Udeh, had immediately debunked the allegations stating that 6,000 candidates had successfully completed their final logging in, Soludo announced that the examination had beencancelled and that a repeat exercise would hold to accommodate all.
Sequel, the Commissioner for Education in a statement announced that “In line with his objective of ensuring transparency and fairness to all, Anambra State Governor, Prof Charles Chukwuma Soludo, has directed a repeat of the online recruitment exam for teachers in Anambra State.
She added,“Soludo has, therefore, graciously directed the Commissioner for Education, Prof. Ngozi Chuma-Udeh, to conduct a repeat of the exercise to make up for the shortfall in the Saturday, June 4, preliminary Teacher’s Recruitment Examination.He has further directed that all expenses for the test be covered by the government.”
The press secretary to the governor, Chris Aburime , during the rage said against the proposed 5,000 qualified applicants to be shortlisted for the CBT exam, the governor had directed that the over 31,000 listed applicants should be given an equal chance to participate in a preliminary online exam, before shortlisting the successful applicants for a second CBT exam.
He said the website mix-ups arose from the online examinations website crashing. He stated that it was not intended as many had insinuated, adding,“It is in a bid to make up and ensure that all eligible candidates are carried along that the governor has approved a repeat of the exercise.He assures Ndi-Anambra that their interest will be protected at all times by his administration.”
