The Kogi State government has ordered the refund of N3,000 paid by each applicants for employment forms for teaching job in the state.
As at the last count, the Teaching Service Commission (TSC) had collected N9.3m from applicants who applied for the teaching job.
To fill the vacancies that existed at the TSC, the state governor, Captain Idris Wada, has approved the recruitment of 500 teachers in various subjects.
However, during the advertisement for the job, the TSC has directed each applicant to pay N3,000 for the application forms, which contradicted the governor’s directive for the recruitment.
The N3,000 paid by each applicant, according to the TSC was intended to be used to settle the National Examination Council (NECO) that was contacted to do the recruitment .
Captain Wada, during the townhall meeting organised by the visiting good governance team said.
“I gave approval for the recruitment of teachers due to shortage of teachers and discovery of ghost teachers. I asked the TSC to work out modalities of the interview with the Ministry of Education, but I was neither consulted nor gave approval for the collection of the applicant fees,” he said.
The governor added that when he got to know of the collection of money, “I ordered immediate refund. The total money collected from applicants was N9. 3 million and NECO, which has not conducted the interview, claimed to have already spent far above the amount for printing attitude test questions, answer scripts and identity cards.”
He informed that the explanation given by TSC was that it contracted NECO, in order to get best hands and not allow politicians to hijack the process, but pleaded with the applicants that the money paid would be adequately refunded.