The Senate may propose movement of teachers’ salaries from recurrent to current expenditure, with a view to ending non-payment of emoluments.

Senate President Bukola Saraki, in Ilorin, yesterday, said the current system where salaries of primary school teachers are paid by Local Government Areas (LGAs) is detrimental to educational growth.

Saraki, who was accompanied by the Chairman Senate Committee on Tertiary Education and Tertiary Education Trust Fund, Yahaya Kaura, and his counterpart on Ethics and Privileges, Bala Ibn Na’allah, bemoaned the present trend of funding education in Nigeria where focus is placed on infrastructural growth at the tertiary level, to the exclusion of primary education.

The Senate President made the disclosure during assessment of readiness of the proposed Ansaru Islam University, Ogidi Oloje, Ilorin, Kwara State, for approval by the National Universities Commission (NUC).

He said: “Before the Senate went on recess, we spent a day discussing this non-payment of primary school teachers’ salaries across the nation. This is an area that should not be left in the hands of the LGAs. The matter now is beyond local councils. It is even beyond states.

“So, we must address that as a national issue. And that is our plan at the Senate that during the recess and when we resume from recess, to engage with the executive arm and see how we can come together. I believe that payment of teachers should not be on recurrent expenditure because it is key to the foundation of education and it is key to capital investment. There is no point putting investment in classrooms where no teacher will turn up because they have not been paid.”