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ENUGU-NIGERIAN Union of Teachers, NUT, has staged a protest in Enugu demanding for a better management of Primary Education as well as elongation of retirement age of teachers in Nigeria.
This call was made by the NUT chairman Enugu State chapter, Comrade Ozor Paul Nnaji during the rally held at New Heaven Primary School, Enugu.
“the renewed agitation for local government autonomy has made it imperative for the Nigerian union of teachers to sensitive stakeholders and the general public on the danger inherent handing over the affairs of primary education to respective local government councils should the autonomy be granted”
“the awful experience of teachers between 1990 to 1994 when primary education was left in the hands of local government councils will continue to haunt the education industry for a long time to come”
Comrade Ozor, addressing teachers requested that the salary of primary School Teachers should be extracted from Local Government Council and be paid directly from Federal government.
“we are of firm belief that the provisions of the 1999 Constitution which vests the onus of the funding and management of the primary education on states while the local government participates as interpreted by the Supreme Court should be upheld to save the primary education from imminent collapse.”
“NUT wishes to state that the current constitutional arrangement under the 1999 constitution for the provision and maintenance of primary education by state government should be sustained. However, it is equally important to emphasize the need for states to be financially empowered to shoulder this responsibility effectively.”
He said that the union was not against the autonomy of local government but that the council do not have the capacity to pay teachers salary and should not allow what happened in 1990/94 to happen again.
He also demanded the elongation of the retirement age of teachers in line with what is obtainable in tertiary institutions stating that there was no reason why the case of school teachers should be an exception.
“We the teachers of secondary and primary schools do seek and demand that our retirement age be raised to 65 years to increase the teacher retention rate in our schools. This will help to check the rate at which experienced teachers are being lost in the school system”.
“The more years a teacher spends on the job, the better he delivers his services to the learners given the benefit of experiences garnered over the years and the wisdom of age. It is for this and other similar reasons that the retirement age of lecturers and professors (all of them, teachers) in the tertiary institutions was extended to 65 and 70 years respectively,” he concluded.
Inscriptions written on the placards displayed by teachers during the rally read thus: save primary education from imminent collapse; payment of Primary School teachers’ salaries must not be toyed with; local government councils do not have the capacity to pay primary school teachers’ salaries; teachers are not against local government autonomy but for finding of and management of primary School teachers’ salary; respect the Supreme Court judgement on the responsibility of payment of Primary School teachers’ salaries.
