Recruitment of 526 New Teachers in Osun State Is a Piecemeal Approach
* DSM calls for massive recruitment of teachers and non-teaching staff to address the huge shortfall.
* We also demand adequate funding of public education to reverse the decaying state of schools in Osun State.
* We call for the cancellation of all fees being paid in public schools
The attention of the Democratic Socialist Movement (DSM), Osun State, has been drawn to the recent recruitment of five hundred and twenty-six (526) new teachers by the administration of Governor Ademola Adeleke. Ordinarily, this should be good news. As a pro–working people organisation campaigning for a functional and adequately funded public education system, we welcome this recruitment. However, the exercise leaves much to be desired.
The recruitment of 526 teachers falls far short of the number required to address the huge shortage of teaching staff in the state’s public primary and secondary schools. It should be recalled that as far back as 2012, there was already a shortfall of over twelve thousand (12,000) teachers in the state’s public schools. This deficit was partly caused by the mass retirement of teachers who opted out of the contributory pension scheme introduced by the administration of Rauf Aregbesola at the time.
Since then, there have been no sustained efforts to address this gap through mass recruitment. The Aregbesola administration attempted to paper over the problem through the use of poorly paid O’Yes Volunteers, who were neither regularised nor properly employed as teachers but were instead treated as casual staff. This ad hoc measure, without leading to outright recruitment, was designed to fail. It is therefore not a surprise that the arrangement failed to resolve the deepening shortage of teachers.
The subsequent administration of Gboyega Oyetola also failed to conduct any meaningful recruitment exercise during most of its four-year tenure. It was only towards the end of the administration, after Mr. Oyetola had already lost the 2022 governorship election, that over 1,500 teachers were recruited. This approach itself is condemnable. Employment after losing election shows that Oyetola is not interested in workers welfare but an attempt to dump his policy on the Adeleke government as a political strategy, just as the APC is doing with the local government funds in their bid to disorganize the government.
While we understand that Nigerian politicians are mainly corrupt and any recruitment would stink of nepotism and corruption, yet we do not agree that the solution is summary dismissal of those employed by Oyetola. What the Adeleke government should have done is to verify the qualifications of the teachers employed by the outgoing administration and regularise them where appropriate, instead of summarily dismissing all 1,500 teachers. Unfortunately after the sack, the Adeleke government failed or neglected to recruit replacements, leaving public schools in an even more difficult situation.
In 2024, the government initiated its own recruitment exercise in which applicants were required to pay three thousand naira (N3,000) to sit for a recruitment examination. In effect, the government collected N3,000 each from more than thirty thousand applicants. However, despite releasing a list of about three thousand successful candidates, the government failed to employ any of them. This development raises serious concerns about the transparency and seriousness of the exercise whereby poor applicants are exploited. On our part we condemn exploitation of poor people in the name of application form. There is no reason why the form should not be free and available on the internet for registration.
Consequently, for more than three years under Adeleke administration there was no meaningful recruitment of teachers leaving the education sector in comatose. While the current recruitment of 526 teachers may add marginally to the workforce, it cannot possibly address the massive shortage of teachers in public primary and secondary schools. If the shortfall was already estimated at twelve thousand teachers in 2012, it is reasonable to assume that the deficit has grown significantly over the past fourteen years.
From our perspective in the DSM, this recruitment exercise does not demonstrate a government that is genuinely committed to revamping public education. Instead, it suggests an administration more interested in making political capital from a deteriorating situation. While previous administrations—particularly those led by the APC under Aregbesola and Oyetola—also neglected public education, we don’t agree with the Adeleke/PDP/Accord administration that it should be business as usual.
Over the past three years, federal allocations to the state have increased more than threefold, while internally generated revenue has also grown significantly. Yet the public education sector continues to suffer severe neglect. While we condemn the withholding of allocations to local government funds by the federal government, we insist that this should not be an excuse for the state of the education sector as equal if not more priority should have been given to education comparable to, for example, roads and solar lights.
Beyond the shortage of teachers, many public schools in Osun State lack the facilities required for modern teaching and learning. Instead of undertaking comprehensive upgrades across the school system, the Adeleke administration appears to be selectively renovating only a few schools. For instance, under its 2025 education infrastructure programme, the government selected just nine secondary schools for upgrades out of the hundreds of public secondary schools across the state. This approach does not reflect a serious commitment to providing quality education for the population.
The DSM therefore calls for massive investment in public education in Osun State. This must include the large-scale recruitment of both teaching and non-teaching staff, far beyond the limited recruitment currently being carried out. We also call for substantial investment in school facilities and infrastructure across the state in order to meet the requirements of modern teaching and learning.
We also call for the cancellation of all fees being in primary and secondary schools in the state. Public primary and secondary education should be free, even according to the Nigerian law. Finally, we call on government to improve the welfare and working conditions of both teaching and non-teaching staff in the public education sector, as part of a broader commitment to rebuilding the public education system.
Alfred Adegoke
State Coordinator