The prospective teachers had staged a peaceful demonstration to protest their non-employment into the state's teaching service.
At least 700 teachers have failed the Primary Six Mathematics, English language and essay writing examinations in Bauchi State.
The Bauchi State commissioner of Education, Aliyu Usman Tilde, disclosed this on Monday, noting that over 700 out of 1,000 women, trained in partnership with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) failed the examinations which were part of steps to employ them as teachers.
The prospective teachers had staged a peaceful demonstration to protest their non-employment into the state's teaching service.
However, while addressing them, Tilde said employing unqualified teachers would jeopardise the future of millions of education seeking pupils in the state.
Tilde noted that some of the protesting women were among the beneficiaries of the 1000 female teachers’ training scheme, introduced in 2019.
"UNICEF trained 50 of them, while the Bauchi State Government trained 950", he added.
As gathered, the trainees were promised immediate employment to teach in primary schools after acquiring National Certificate in Education (NCE), but failed the aptitude test.
“The government was ready to employ all of them, but only if they passed a recruitment test; we tested them on primary six mathematics, English and essays.”
“But because of their massive failure, we came down to employing anyone who has at least 50% in maths or English and a grade C in English", Tilde said.
He further disclosed that only 249 of them who passed the examinations and scaled the recruitment interview were employed.
“They have not studied well enough, as you can see from these terrible scripts, to be sent to classrooms as teachers. They are free to say anything on social media, seek the aid of human rights groups or even go to court,” he added.