The Lagos State through its Teaching Service Commission (TESCOM) has announced plans to recruit more teachers specializing in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) subjects.
The Deputy Director of Public Affairs at TESCOM, Mr Kayode Sutton disclosed this in Lagos on Tuesday.
He also said TESCOM wants to improve the teacher-to-student ratio in schools by collaborating with the six educational districts in the state to address the shortages caused by teachers retiring.
The objective of this is to achieve at least one teacher for every 30 students, a goal towards which the state government is progressing.
According to Sutton, there is a high demand for STEM teachers in many schools due to their scarcity, thus, necessitating TESCOM to prioritize their recruitment to fill the vacancies.
“We have specific teachers called STEM teachers, that is the Science (Physics, Chemistry and Biology); Technical; English and Mathematics teachers; they are in dire need in most of our schools.
“Therefore, we are giving priority to them in employment and that will continue, because teachers for these subjects are scarce and not easy to come by, and we must fill any available vacancy.
“That does not imply that other subjects teachers are not considered for employment. We do In fact, we have them in abundance across the schools.
“However, we place priority on the STEM teachers in all schools across the education districts and we have been employing quite a good number of them, because of their importance,” he said.
Sutton also noted that there are schools where the number of students significantly exceeds the number of teachers, a situation he described as a deficiency that the state government is working to rectify.
“We have a mandate to reduce the teachers/students ratio in our schools because the students in each of the classes are much more than the teacher can handle, which we know is a shortcoming.
“As a responsible and responsive government, we have moved swiftly to address this in the last few years and employed thousands of teachers through an official platform.
“The opportunity is explicitly for those that are education-based to apply, where they provide their details and requirements, they get a unique number that TESCOM will use to contact them,” he said.
Alleluia is the Assistant Editor and Content Writer at LagosPost.ng. She is a prolific writer and editor, she has written features and news stories on Lifestyle, Sports, Business, Politics and B2B marketing. She is also an event coordinator, host and social media content creator.
