AN OPEN LETTER TO NATIONAL ASSEMBLY: REMOVE PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHERS FROM LOCAL GOVERNMENT AUTHORITY

AN OPEN LETTER TO NATIONAL ASSEMBLY: REMOVE PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHERS FROM LOCAL GOVERNMENT AUTHORITY

            

                               By:

Nurudeen Dauda

                       June 1, 2017.

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The recent move by the National Assembly to increase teachers retirement age from 60-65years must not only stop at that, but in my suggestion they should also remove primary school teachers completely from local government authorities to the federal government payroll in order to ensure higher and prompt payments of their salaries. With the present economic recession in the country it shows clearly that local government authorities lack the financial muscle to maintain primary education. The federal government must go beyond intervention but a total takeover.

In my observation, primary school teachers in virtually all the states of the federation are suffering including teachers in some oil producing states due to unpaid salaries. Primary Education is the foundation of Education. Without primary and secondary education, we cannot have the critical higher level skills and knowledge needed for economic growth and development.

Recently a headmistress in Abia state, Mrs Maryleen Ezichi who told the governor's wife when she visited her school to launch a program that she should tell her husband to pay teachers their salaries was reported to have been demoted to class-room and transferred to a remote area few days after (Daily Trust,April 15, 2017). Also, In Bayelsa state, a 42- year-old father of seven Mr Gbemede Kitchen was said to have committed Suicide over unpaid salaries (Desert Herald, 4th April, 2017,p.30).

Primary education is the foundation of education. No building stands without a sound or solid foundation. Our foundation in the education sector is primary education,if we must get it right we must build a solid foundation. For the foundation to be solid we must get well motivated and qualified teachers to manage the system. It is on this that, I firmly support the new policy of Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN) which states that it will stop the existing system of registration of teachers which does not involve any examination. TRCN going forward has said: holders of certificates will undergo professional examination before registration.

Teaching profession is not supposed to be an "All- comers job". It should not be a platform for political patronage or compensation. Those who do not have what it takes to be teachers should be shown the way out. Let's find a way of motivating the best brains to be in  primary schools by higher pay to primary school teachers. This will be made easier if they are under federal government. In my humble view, local governments or state governments cannot adequately maintain primary education anymore. In my humble suggestions, primary education should be handled by the federal government. Primary school teachers' salaries should completely be made a federal government responsibility.

"As the saying goes: teachers rewards is in the heaven "-Permit me to submit that teachers deserve their rewards both "here" on earth and in the "hereafter". Education as it were is in the "concurrent legislative list" rather than the "Exclusive legislative list" which means a shared power(and or responsibilities) between the three tiers of government. In my humble opinion, it is "HIGH TIME "we put primary education in the "Exclusive legislative list" which means it will be "purely" a federal government's responsibility only. 

We must not "joke" with the foundation of our education. Primary School Teachers in particular and the Local Government workers in general are the worst hit in the economic "downturn"currently being witnessed in the country. Primary school teachers in some cases were owed up to 9 months salaries. I totally agree that primary education be removed completely from Local Government to the Federal Government's payroll not even to state Governments.

Sadly to note, Local Government Chairmen beginning from the Fourth Republic(1999) abused primary education by employing their political boys(and or political thugs) as primary schools teachers most or even all of whom had hardly passed either their WEAC or NECO. More so, in some cases those employed as teachers were even"dropouts".Most of those employed as teachers needed to go back to school and either write their SSCEs or rewrite it in order to make their papers. A lot of teachers in the primary education system are not "qualified" either on the basis of not having NCE which is the minimum qualification or not having anything at all, but only political connection. Their is little or no teachers "training"and"re- training ".This does not in anyway mean that all the teachers are "quacks" ,there are good teachers indeed. 

Similarly, due to the collapse in our primary education in  Nigeria one can argue that the graduates of class seven(7) of the "yesteryear" are by far, better than the Secondary School Graduates of nowadays in terms of "writing" and "reading"skills.Teachers at the Urban areas are certainly overstaffed which ,of course, bring about redundancy perhaps that is why some of them are even on"Part Time jobs" at private schools. Some will say "poor" salaries is responsible, yet government schools pay more salaries than the private schools. Teachers at the rural areas are not "enough" perhaps no one wants to serve in the rural areas. If we must get it right,we must "PURGE QUACKS " from the system. We must remunerate qualified teachers well and timely.

The National President of Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT), Comrade Michael Olukoya had once said:" local governments in the country lack the financial capacity to efficiently fund primary education. He said there is no LG in this country through their fiscal allocation that can effectively run primary school education, and there is none that can pay teachers salaries without collaborative efforts of the state government, they have been doing this on monthly basis. He added that for the interest of the country and the children of the poor, we are saying stop this action"

The UBE Act 2004 makes provision for basic education comprising of Primary and Junior Secondary Education Compulsory. The financing of basic education is the responsibility of states and Local Governments. However, the Federal government is also funding it through UBE intervention in the provision of basic education with 2% of its Consolidated Revenue Fund. For states to fully benefit from this Fund, criteria were established which states are to comply with before benefiting. The Act also provides for the establishment of the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) to co-ordinate the implementation of the programme at the states and local government through the State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) of each state and the Local Government Education Authorities (LGEAs) . The Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) was formally established on 7th October 2004.

However, In my modest view, the National Assembly should come up with a bill that will transfer primary school education to federal government. Removing primary education from the concurrent legislative list to the exclusive legislative will ensure prompt payment of their salaries. If the primary school teachers are employed as federal workers it will attract better salaries which will in turn attract our best brains into the teaching profession. This in my  understanding, is doable. It is time to end the suffering of our teachers.

May God bless Nigeria!