Cross River State Universal Basic Education Board Chairman, Stephen Odey, has disclosed in Calabar that, after the teachers’ verification exercise conducted by the board from January 18th, 2016 to March 14th, 2017, it discovered over 734 teachers in the Cross River State school system with fake NCE and degree certificates and over 230 teachers with referred grade II (TC II)certificates and informed that state governor Ben Ayade has directed that sanctions be meted against those involved but came clear that none of the culprits should be sacked.
“So, we are not going to dismiss them even though they have committed fraud, but, we are going to step them down and allow them on humanitarian grounds, to go back to school and remedy their situations. We do not want to take away food from their tables. We are granting them amnesty because we are brothers and sisters,’’ he said.
He also noted that the verification exercise was carried out to correct identified irregularities in payment of salaries that teachers have suffered in the past, noting that “SUBEB has officially taken over payment of teachers’ salaries, we have worked out modalities where there will be regular payment of salaries”.
The affected teachers were advised to seek admission for further studies through sandwich programmes and write to his office for approval, one way of updating their knowledge for the benefits of the pupils and the overall interest of the state. “Any teacher who corrects his or her situation would be reinstated to his or her former position” he concluded.
