An aide to The Rivers State Governor, Oraye St Franklyn has assured that the recruitment of Teachers into the State Civil Service is not a scam, insisting that only qualified persons would be employed.
St Franklyn, who is the Senior Special Assistant (SSA) to the Rivers State Governor on News Media, stated this in an exclusive chat with The Tide at the sidelines of the 6th edition of the Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED) forum Conference in Port Harcourt, Rivers State recently.
St Franklyn, who was one of the Resource Persons at the event dismissed speculations that the earlier advertised teachers’ job was a scam, saying the most important thing is ‘not about the provision of jobs, but employability. Most of the people who are raising the alarm are they employable?
“A lot of analysis have been done and the outcome is not pleasing. People need to do much more to make themselves employable. I am neither the Commissioner for Education nor the spokesman of the State Government, but I can tell you that government has made the announcement that it will employ and rest assured that it will be done.
“Already the process is ongoing through the Rivjobs and people have been put through training programmes to make them employable,” he said, stressing that “ Education is key to engaging the people as well as providing the enabling environment for business to thrive so that people can be gainfully engaged and that is what the Rivers State government is doing.
“You can imagine the volume of jobs that have been created through the various projects this administration has embarked upon since inception.
“That we are employing Teachers does not mean that we will take every Tom, Dick and Harry. We must select those who are qualified.  A teacher is someone who impacts values in our society so you must be properly qualified and that process has started,” the governor’s aide said.
The governor’s aide who spoke on ‘Crisis and Creativity’ called on youths in the state and the Niger Delta as a whole to think outside the box and make the best out of difficult situations rather remaining stagnant.

By: Dennis Naku.