He regretted the trend where no tier of government could be held liable for poor funding of primary schools in the country and demanded that it should be the responsibility of the state governments to fund primary education, including payment of teachers’ salaries in line with the Supreme Court judgment of 2002.
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The NUT Chairman also lamented the situation where the accountant general always allegedly enjoyed paying the primary school teachers last, among the civil servants.
On the application of the bailout funds to indebted states, he said government should not hesitate to probe any erring state found to have diverted the funds to other sources. Babachir Lawal, in Abuja at a rally to mark the day which had the theme: “Empowering Teachers, Building Sustainable Societies”.
The union leader further demanded that the retirement age of teachers in primary and secondary schools be raised to 65 years to increase teacher retention rate.
Ibrahim accused the government of neglecting teachers, saying their annual salary increment and promotion arrears had not been implemented for eight years.
“Education has not been given priority because when you look at what is coming into education as a budget, particularly in a country like Nigeria where illiteracy is on the high hand, we have inadequate budget for education and teachers generally in the country”.
“Our educational institutions must be manned by professional technocrats in education and teachers must be consulted on policies that affect their profession for quality service delivery, ” he said.
NLC Chairman, Haruna Kamara gave the lawmakers up to October 26, 2015 to ensure that all allowances owed teachers in the state are paid immediately.
On primary education, he said: “In as much as we support Mr. President”.
He said: “Even the teachers here on a daily basis are aware that the government of Edo State, as it is now, is one that is friendly and understands the plight of the teachers”.
The governor also stressed the need to include emotional intelligence, interdisciplinary learning, critical thinking, effective communication and learning beyond classroom into the curriculum.
He said his government was about to recruit 600 teaching and non-teaching staff for the new Model Secondary Schools.
The theme, according to him, is apt and explained the fact that society can only be sustained by empowering teachers and strengthening the teaching profession.
Akosile appealed for employment of more teachers in the state to fill consequential vacancies and integration of teachers deployed from local governments.
State chairman of NUT, Jonathan Jemirieyigbe, expressed optimism that the celebration would cause both state and local governments to redefine the place of its teachers by providing favourable working conditions and the professional excellence needed to achieve the required changes in the educational system.
He said the “1, 240 qualified and experienced teachers” comprised of 51 university graduates, 1, 134 NCE and 55 diploma holders sponsored by the State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) to obtain new qualifications.
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The Ondo State Chapter of Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) yesterday called on the state government to restore 166 primary school teachers and 200 secondary school teachers whose names were removed from the vouchers during verification exercises.
