As Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) celebrates the 2016 World Teacher’s Day, teachers in Edo state have agitated for a better condition of service.
BusinessDay reports that the teachers in the state joined their counterpart globally to celebrate the 2016 World Teacher’s Day in Benin- City.
The State Chairman of NUT, Mike Uhunmwangho who made the remark in his address at the occasion noted that teachers have been subjected to various ill-treatment by various stakeholders as a result of huge neglect suffer in the hands of governments.
Uhunmwangho posited that non-payment and irregular payment of pensions and gratuities has further compounded teachers’ challenges in the state.
He also listed other challenges faced by teachers in the state to include non- availability of car and housing loans, no training and retraining programmes , overcrowded classrooms with pupils and students.
Other challenges are non-payment of 2016 leave transport grant to primary school teachers, high level of shortage of teaching personnel, irregular promotions, lack of subvention to schools among others,
According to him, we are all living witness to the ill- treatments teachers are subjected to by various stakeholders in Nigeria occasioned by the huge neglect teachers suffer in the hands of governments in Nigeria to the extent that landlords do not like renting their houses to teachers as well as some parents not even allowing their daughters to be married to teachers.
“The massive impoverishments suffered by teachers in our societies have made them to be classified as second class citizens in Nigeria whereas they are supposed to occupy a pride of place in our country”, he said.
In his address, the National President of the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) Michael Olukoya accused some state governors of hiding under the guise of the economic recession in the country to transfer the management and funding of primary education, particularly payment of teachers’ salaries to local government councils thus subjecting teachers to so much suffering and hunger.
Olukoya also added that some state governments were bent on handling over public schools to voluntary agencies just as others subjected teachers to unending, strenuous and traumatic verification exercises with the aim of retrenching them even in the facing glaring shortage of teachers in the school system.
However lamented that secondary and primary school teachers across the country were being owed salaries ranging from two to seven months in a number of states across the country, adding that even where salaries were paid, it was either in fractions or randomly.
The NUT president further lamented that the Education sector was plagued by non- implementation of promotions, annual increments and other entitlements due to teachers as well as lack of science laboratories, libraries and ICT equipment among others.
He however appealed to all tiers of government to as a matter of urgency pay up all arrears of salaries owed teachers even as he called on government to see the plight of retired teachers by ensuring that their retirement benefits were paid to them as and when due.
He called on the Federal government to consider the demand by teachers to increase their retirement age from 60 to 65 years as well as appealed to the government to ensure that only qualified and professionally trained personnel were engaged in the proposed recruitment of 500,000 teachers in order to promote professionalism and effective service delivery.
