The National President of the Nigeria Union of Teachers, Titus Amba, has condemned the non-payment of primary school teachers, which, according to him, is running into several months by some state governments.
He also called on the Federal Government to make basic education a core responsibility of the state governments.
Amba made this known at the delegates conference of the federal wing of the NUT, which was held at the Teachers House, Abuja, on Tuesday.
“I urge the Minister of Education to lend his executive voice through the Federal Executive Council, by urging them to cause an amendment in the 1999 Constitution, whereby the first nine years of basic education be made a core responsibility of the state governments instead of the local government councils.
“It is only when the funding of basic education is made a core constitutional responsibility of state governments that the toxic phenomenon of non-payment of primary school teachers salaries will be a thing of the past across the states of the federation,” he said.
While lamenting the backlog of salaries and promotion arrears owed both federal and state teachers, the NUT president insisted that welfare of teachers must be given priority in the policies and programmes of all the tiers of government in the country, if the vision for the future of education in Nigeria would be meaningfully realised.
He underscored the role that teachers play as agents of change and the cornerstone of educational development in any progressive clime.
Chairman of NUT, Federal Wing, Alex Okonta, on his part, lamented that teachers of Federal Government Colleges (Unity Schools) are being owed accumulated arrears.
He called on the Federal Government to ensure payment of these arrears without delay.
Okonta also demanded the establishment of the Federal Teaching Service Commission, saying a functional teaching service commission would remove the bottleneck affecting promotion and restore the lost glory of federal schools in Nigeria.
He further called for the implementation of the new Teachers Salary Scale approved in 2020 by the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari, noting that the Federal Government had announced the new salary teachers structure and other packages to boost the moral of teachers.
He said a lot of federal teachers have been stagnated for several years because of “no vacancy”.
He demanded that teachers should get their promotion as and when due given the nature of the job they do.
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