By Fatima Zahra Muhammad
ASHENEWS reports that the National Association of Christian Religious Educators of Nigeria (NACREN) has decried the marginalization of Christian Religious Knowledge (CRK) teachers in the country.
The National President, of NACREN, Rev. Dr. Reuben Maiture stated this at the 45th anniversary and National Conference of the National Association of Christian Religious Educators of Nigeria (NACREN) held in Minna.
Accordingly, he said, “the segregation, marginalization and unfair treatment on the CRK teachers by governments at all level should stop. Government emphasizes on the ICT, Technology, Entrepreneur sectors and so on but relegates CRK that would have help to transform the society morally to the background.”
On his part, the state CAN Chairman, Dr. Bulus Dauwa Yohanna said that reinstating CRK as a subject in Public Schools can help address social vices amongst youths in the state.
The CAN chairman who appealed to the state Governor Umaru Mohammed Bago to revisit the issue of recruiting Christian Religious Knowledge (CRK) teachers in public schools said that there has been a running battle between successive governments in the State and CAN since 2003 over the issue of employment of CRK teachers in all public schools in the state.
According to him, there are only 120 CRK teachers in the state across 152 public schools.
“in 2004 when Niger hosted the National Conference of CRK Teachers, the statistics given to us by the government was 220 CRK teachers including the non-qualified teachers for over 450 schools.
“The 2016 statistical data, the state needed about 300 CRK teachers for the over 300 schools in the state. But as at today, most of the CRK teachers have either retired or some of them who are still in active service have been converted to teach Social Studies or any other subjects.
“This has been a big challenge and CAN have in the past engaged volunteer teachers and even paid stipends to fill the gap. Whereas the Christians are being denied teachers, the story is different with the Islamic Religious Knowledge (IRK) as they have qualified teachers to teach in most of the schools,” he said.
He then called on the government to make the study of CRK attractive for those in higher institutions so as to have professional teachers in the subject.
