World Teachers’ Day is a day set aside to celebrate teachers all over the world by an enactment of the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), and to give teachers a brighter future. Comrade Adesegun Raheem, the Lagos State Chairman of the Nigeria Union of Teachers, (NUT) spoke with DEBO OLADIMEJI on the 2015 World Teachers’ Day celebration themed: ‘Empowering Teachers, Building Sustainable Societies’, and the need for teachers’ empowerment by the government.

On the 2015 World Teachers’ Day
The theme is Empowering Teachers, Building Sustainable Society. The theme was drawn from an angle that when you want to build a sustainable society, there is the need to empower teachers. Of course, a lot of papers were presented on this nationally and at various state levels, including Lagos. It is very traditional to Lagos State teachers. The event is tripartite in nature. All the teachers in our 20 local councils gathered together to mark it. Then each local branch sent 20 delegates to the state for state celebration. And the state sent 20 delegates to Abuja for the national celebration.
From the report that I got from all our branches, including the delegation to Abuja, it was very successful. It was well attended and it was well celebrated.

What are the problems of teachers ?
When you talk of the problems of teachers nationally, you will be talking of insecurity as the case is in the North East. Then we have bad policy and policy summersault of government at the state and federal levels. Addressing the quality in the turnout of trained teachers in our various colleges of education and universities. Lack of teachers in our various classrooms and poor remuneration. In fact, the list is endless. They are just too numerous to mention.

What areas of the problems have you been able to address?
What we have been able to sort out is actually in the area of recognizing teachers and teaching as a profession. And through a struggle from 1993 to 2009, government was able to come in agreement with NUT. That is, specific allowances, about four of them, which constitute about 27.5 of the basic they paid for teachers to actually complement their efforts as professionals.
Two, consistency in the area of manpower development, capacity building, training, workshops and the rest of it. These are things that have been going on that make teaching worthwhile, at least for now.

In the area of remuneration, what are the things that you want the government to do?
Government should understand that Nigerians are always moving in the direction of the sector of the economy that is booming. Presently for instance, the economy is booming in the entertainment industry. Some lawyers are now rappers, reggae musicians and so on. You see somebody who has a Master’s degree in Business Administration becoming a chartered artist. This is where the real money is coming from now and people have moved away from the banking and engineering sector into entertainment sector.
In those days, everybody was looking towards becoming a teacher. The entire community will contribute money together to sponsor the best brain in the community so that he becomes the pride of the community. We want the government to ensure that we have a situation where they will be able to attract the best hands into teaching.

How do you want them to go about doing that?
The best way to do this is to introduce special salary scale. Just like they give special salary scale to doctors. A fresh graduate doctor commences with grade level 12. If the teacher can commence with grade level 12, there is nothing bad about it. With all necessary allowances to back up the profession. That is our suggestion. The situation is really getting worrisome because people with poor results are the ones that are going into the teaching profession.

How far as the government gone in meeting your demands?
We need to get it right. In the first instance, the national policy on education indicates that education is supposed to be in the exclusive list of legislature as against the current status that it has. As far as we don’t have a common legislation for education, there will continue to be a clash of interest in that respect. If the federal government, for instance, today says let the minimum wage for teachers is N35, 000 you will see one state government saying federal government cannot dictate what they should pay their workers.

How do you intend to go about your agitation?
Agitations are too numerous. But labour movement has gone beyond just calling on teachers or workers to just go on strike. It has gone scientific. Approach in the area of collaboration, cooperation and presenting superior augment. That has been what we have been doing. That is why you see that most labour movements no longer go on strike. We have serious challenges. We have presented them before government and from time to time, government has been looking at them. It was in that process too that the balance of 27.5 percent was paid to teachers in Lagos State in March salary. It is on the basis of that the Lagos State government has agreed to recruit 1,300 teachers to the public primary schools. But we have written to them that it will not be enough.
Government is looking into some other things that we have presented before them.

In the area of empowerment, what has been done by the government?
There is nothing special the government nationally has given to teachers. Lagos State is even trying. There is this loan for car refurbishment, for housing that they give to teachers free of interest.
Most of the teachers don’t key into it because when you look at the figure, the cash involved is so meager to serve the purpose of the loan. In the area of capacity building, government is trying for the teachers. The last government actually improved upon what we had before by the introduction of Eko Education Project in our secondary schools.

Most of our teachers in our secondary schools now key into the project. In the area of capacity building, training generally the government of Lagos State is trying its best. We have not gotten there. But the government has improved upon the quality of training and seminars. It has improved upon it tremendously compared to what we used to have in the past.
And the introduction of Eko Education Project has brought about liberation that even school system can now send teachers on seminars and workshops.

The state of the infrastructure in the schools?
The last government in Lagos State really tried in providing infrastructure, particularly in secondary schools. Unlike before, it is chalk and board, but most of our secondary schools are now using marker board. That is an improvement. Most of our secondary schools now have modern technology and gadgets to teach. They have CDs and soft wares that help them in teaching. NUT also partnered with the government to empower the teachers with laptops. That helps them to prepare lesson notes better.
But in the primary school sub sector, it is not yet Uhuru. A lot of them still use chalk and board. It is our hope that this present government in Lagos State will improve upon what the last government has done. I must be very frank with you, in the last four to five years, the teaching and learning outcome has been very tremendous and positive too.