Labour to shut down 110 unity schools over workers’ welfare

Organised labour has threatened to shut down the 110 unity schools nationwide in the next 21 days over challenges bordering on workers’ welfare. Labour, through the Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria (ASCSN), has ordered its members to begin trade union actions in the schools within the next 21 days, if no meeting is summoned by the Ministry of Education.
  
The Secretary-General of ASCSN, Joshua Apebo, stated, over the weekend that all efforts to bring the Ministry of Education to the roundtable had been frustrated since 2023 it began sending a series of letters to the ministry to convene a meeting to address welfare issues affecting its members in the Unity Colleges and the Federal Education Quality Assurance Service (FEQAS).   He said the ultimatum was given in a letter sent to the Ministry of Education on January 23, 2025.
 
According to him, the outstanding welfare issues include payment of promotion, salary, and elongation arrears; payment of allowance to education officers displaced from the Unity Schools in the North East, payment of first 28 days in lieu of hotel accommodation as stipulated in the Public Service Rules.

Other demands include disarticulating Junior Secondary Schools from the Senior Secondary Schools to create vacancies at the Directorate level, payment of transport allowance and DTA to FEQAS staff, and the need to drastically reduce exorbitant medical fees charged members of staff by the Health Management Organisation (HMO) appointed by the Ministry of Education under the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).