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Ekiti, Borno teachers decry inclusion of primary schools under council autonomy

By Njadvara Musa (Maiduguri) and John Abiodun (Ado-Ekiti)
04 July 2017   |   4:28 am
Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) who marched through the streets of Ado-Ekiti, the Ekiti State capital, took their protest to the State House of Assembly where they handed over their position paper to the Speaker, Kola Oluwawole...

The NUT State Chairman, Samuel Segun Olugbesan, told the lawmakers that ceding primary schools administration, including payment of salaries and allowances of teachers of primary schools to councils, would have dire consequences.

Teachers in Ekiti State yesterday protested against planned inclusion of primary school administration in the proposed autonomy of local councils. They said their opposition to council autonomy would be if such would make the local councils take over primary education administration.

The placards-carrying teachers under the aegis of Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) who marched through the streets of Ado-Ekiti, the Ekiti State capital, took their protest to the State House of Assembly where they handed over their position paper to the Speaker, Kola Oluwawole, for onward transmission to Governor Ayodele Fayose.

The NUT State Chairman, Samuel Segun Olugbesan, told the lawmakers that ceding primary schools administration, including payment of salaries and allowances of teachers of primary schools to councils, would have dire consequences.

He said putting primary school education under local councils would return teachers to those days of denial, poverty and unpaid salaries. He said: “We have heard that some people are working for the independence of the local councils. We are not opposed to this. But we reject the autonomy if teachers would be put under the councils.

“There was a time house-owners were refusing to let out their houses to teachers. This was a period the councils owed teachers about 30 months salaries and allowances. Things were so bad that no one could be proud of being a teacher.”

The Speaker, flanked by his deputy, Segun Adewumi; Head of Service, Dr. Gbenga Faseluka and Chief of Staff to the Governor, Mr. Dipo Anisulowo, assured of support of the governor and the state Assembly in the teachers’ agitation.

In the same vein, the Borno State Chapter of the NUT has kicked against granting autonomy to local councils in the country. It said 774 councils neither have the financial capacity nor the political will to fund primary schools.

Chairman of the NUT, Bulama Abiso, who addressed Governor Kashim Shettima yesterday at the Government House in Maiduguri, said that between 1990 and 1994 when primary education came under the control of Local Councils, the school system collapsed with poor funding and neglect.

Abiso, who noted that the NUT was not totally against Local Council Autonomy, but concerned about the likelihood of scrapping the Joint Local Government Account, warned that it could take primary schools back to the dark pre-1994 era.

He said that any attempt made to handover primary education to local councils amounts to consigning primary education to the abyss of total collapse.

Governor Shettima said that to address poor funding of primary education, government is planning to conduct a biometric data capture of primary school teachers to save funds from ghost teachers.

He said that the state government had to intervene in the payment of teachers’ salaries in six councils.

He, therefore, assured the teachers that with the savings to be made from “auditing and physical verification” of teachers, the N18, 000 minimum wage would be implemented in the six affected councils.

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