Edo Teacher Fails Reading Test

How Mrs Augusta Odemwinge, a teacher at Asologun Primary School, Ikpoba in Okha Local Government Area of Edo State, has been able to perform her duties is something that the Governor, Mr. Adams Oshiomhole, has not been able to understand. In her care was entrusted the onerous responsibility of shaping the minds of children. But she proved Tuesday that she was barely better than the pupils she was employed to teach.

Odemwinge failed a crucial test in her career at the screening of teachers by the Edo State Government in Benin City when she could not read a sworn affidavit she tendered as part of her credentials. 

The drama played out when Oshiomhole paid an unscheduled visit to the State Staff Training Centre, venue of the exercise.

The governor, who was appalled that a teacher could not read, said: "If you can’t read, what do you teach the pupils?  What do you write on the board?”

Also perplexed was the state Chairman of the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT), Mr. Patrick Ikosimi, who was at the venue to monitor the screening. He described the woman’s failure to perform the simple task assigned to her as “an embarrassment”.

The drama, it was learnt, began when Odemwinge took her turn for the exercise, as Oshiomhole who was listening to her defence asked her to read the affidavit she presented.

In doing that, she stuttered as she read the affidavit like a kindergarten learning to read, to the consternation of everybody around.

Ikosimi, while flaying the conduct of Odemwinge, said the union was in tune with the state government on the need to sanitise the school system.

“We are committed to partnering the government to reposition education in the state. What this teacher has just displayed is a show of shame; it shows the decadence in the education sector.

“As the chairman of NUT, I have written to the governor that we are in total support of what he is doing. He should properly involve the NUT so that together we can fish out the culprits who are not viable as far as the system is concerned," he said.