The Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) has appealed to the government to address the issue of payment of gratuities and pensions so as to make retirement life joyful for teachers across the country.
The national president of NUT, Dr Muhammed Idris, made the plea at the 2019 World Teachers’ Day celebrations organised by the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT), Lagos State Wing,on Saturday in Lagos.
The theme of this year’s celebration is: “Young Teacher; The Future of the Profession.”
The World Teachers’ Day is held annually on Oct. 5, to commemorate the anniversary of the signing of the 1966 UNESCO/ILO recommendation concerning the status of teachers.
According to Idris, every teacher across the country deserves to be purposeful fulfilled and find fulfillment after retirement.
“NUT has observed with dismay the plights of retired teachers who,despite their toils, sacrifices and had performed meritorious services to the nation, are denied retirement benefits.
“The establishment of the contributory pension scheme in the country is a right step in the right direction.
” However, the scheme is engulfed in teething challenges in some states of the federation,”Idris said.
He said that the theme of this year’s celebration would draw public attention to the issues of attrition, teacher shortage and the challenge of attracting and retaining young, motivated and dedicated teachers into the teaching profession.
“According to UNESCO, Institute of Statistics (2016), over 69 million teachers are needed for primary and secondary education to meet the targets of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) around the world by 2030.
“Out of this number, the UNESCO Institute of Statistics (UIS) report indicated that 48.6 million new recruits are needed to replace those teachers who are to leave the profession either through retirement or voluntarily.
“In Nigeria, the issue of shortage of teachers has remained a major challenge in the education system.
“Reports from practitioners indicate an alarming rate of retirement of teachers without a corresponding recruitment to fill the gap,” he said .
The union also urged relevant authorities to ensure that teachers of unity schools and other command schools in the country were allowed to be actively involved trade unionism.
In his opening remarks,Mr Adedoyin Adesina, Chairman of NUT,Lagos State Wing, urged the state government to convert qualified non-teaching staff in primary schools to teaching staff.
Adesina noted that the development would, to a large extent, equally address the issue of shortage of teachers in the state’s primary schools.
“There is no gain saying that the ratio of teachers to pupils in the schools is no longer at par, due to the growing students’ population, teachers statutory and voluntary retirement and death.
“Although, the government has announced or proposed a recruitment of 15,000 teachers, we are of the opinion that it may not be enough because it is a long time teachers were last recruited,”he said.
Adesina advised that a survey of what subject teachers that schools actually needed be carried out so that no subject would be affected. (NAN)
