More than 10,000 people applied for 1,000 primary school teaching jobs approved by the Nasarawa State Government under a special rural recruitment plan, officials said on Monday in Lafia.
The update came from Senior Special Assistant to the Governor on Public Affairs, Peter Ahemba, who represented Governor Abdullahi Sule during the bi-monthly press briefing at the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) State Council Secretariat in Lafia. He spoke on the recruitment exercise carried out by the State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB).
Ahemba said the state approved the hiring of 1,000 primary school teachers to tackle the shortage of staff in rural communities. He said every successful applicant would be posted only to schools in rural areas.
He also said the government set aside its usual internal recruitment process and gave the job to an independent consulting firm to make sure the exercise was fair and credible.
The briefing showed that although the exercise attracted a huge number of applicants, only a small number met the required standard.
The full score breakdown has not been released, but more than 10,000 candidates competed for the 1,000 available positions.
Ahemba assured applicants that the recruitment would remain open, fair and based on merit. He said the decision to post successful candidates to rural schools is meant to reduce the shortage of teachers in hard-to-reach communities across the state.
The government also asked applicants to wait for further updates from SUBEB and the consulting firm on the next stage of the recruitment exercise.
