The Lagos State Teaching Service Commission, (TESCOM) has reiterated its commitment to continuously improve the professional and management skills of teachers in public post-primary schools across the state.
The commission which had embarked on annual training also promised to train 17,000 teachers this year
The Permanent Secretary of the Commission, Mrs Olubusola Abidakun who made this known during a Media parley held in the State also revealed that it had trained over 6,381 in the year 2020, over 12,760 in 2021 and over 15,699 in the year 2022.
Mrs Abidakun said immediately after the inauguration of TESCOM in February 2019, the first resolve was to address the acute shortage of teachers in the State’s Post Primary Schools through the recruitment of academically and professionally qualified teachers into competency frameworks in terms of the generic, technical and attitudinal soft and hard skills that make the holistic teacher worth pay.
According to her, the Commission was granted approval for the Quarterly Replacement of Exited Teachers in the six education districts.
“The Commission through the technical and workforce planning strategy, has recruited over 7,143 Teachers to boost the manpower need in our post primary schools. These newly recruited educators were adequately inducted or unboarded to ensure proper immersion into the school system. At the inception, the commission observed that the much touted professionalization of the teaching profession was not reflected in the promotions of the teachers in the state. The service-wide generic trainings for promotions were inadequate in determining the professional competency levels of teachers.
“Consequently, the commission redesigned the Structured Training programmes (STP) for teachers to include professional job specific training programmes. More importantly, the training institute of the commission, the Teaching Service Staff Development Center (TSSDC),Owutu, Ikorodu is saddled with the professional training programmes for career progression of Teachers in the Lagos State.
“To date, the commission promoted over 18,374 (Eighteen thousand, three hundred and seventy-four) Teachers in the state public secondary schools.
“During the Covid-19 epidemic outbreak which resulted in the lockdown of all schools in Nigeria and the World at large, the commission commenced the Eko Webinar Series, a virtual platform solely for post primary school Teacher’s enhancement and productivity during and post Covid era.”
Mrs Abidakun maintained that the annual Verification Exercise for Pensioners was redesigned to allow the “senior citizens” get verified from the comfort of their homes, thereby reducing all risks involved with physically presenting selves at the commission. Dedicated WhatsApp lines were publicised and pensioners made video calls only to be verified.
She stated that a total number of about 9,874 (Nine thousand, eight hundred and seventy-four) pensioners on old pensions scheme had been verified till date.
“In its quest of the commission to regulate the activities of teachers in the state to achieve acceptable conduct within and outside the school system, the commission developed the “Teachers code of conduct and Ethics ” booklet. Of essence, there is need to proudly state that our teachers, for 3 consecutive years, emerged the best National teachers with the receipt of car gifts from the Vice president of the Republic of Nigeria,“ she added.
PIAK
