Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT), Delta chapter, has urged Gov. Ifeanyi Okowa to implement the new teachers’ retirement age bill signed into law by President Muhammadu Buhari.
The state NUT Chairman, Mr Titus Okotie, said this on Wednesday at the commemoration of the 2022 World Teachers’ Day, held at Cenotaph in Asaba.
This year’s celebration has, as its theme: “The Transformation of Education Begins with the Teachers.’’
According to Okotie, the implementation of harmonised retirement age for teachers remains a major step to making the theme realistic in the state.
“As you are aware, NUT’s struggle for upward review of the retirement age/service over the years yielded the desired result in April.
“This was when the bill seeking for the new retirement age for teachers in Nigeria, earlier passed by both chambers of the National Assembly, was signed into law by President Muhammadu Buhari.
“Since then, many states have implemented the law for their teachers, the most recent being Osun and the FCT.
“I wish to passionately appeal to our teacher-friendly governor to approve the implementation for teachers in Delta, in the spirit of this year’s event,” Okotie said.
He expressed the readiness of the teachers in the state to to improve on their pedagogy for transformational service delivery.
Speaking, the National President of NUT, Mr Audi Amba, said that the deplorable state of education and poor working conditions of teachers had adversely affected education service delivery in public schools.
“The education system in Nigeria is in crisis at the tertiary level. Students of public universities have been out of school for about seven months now due to protracted industrial disputes between the Federal Government and ASUU.
“The basic secondary education sub-sector is faced with serious challenges, such as the non-implementation of N30,000 minimum wage for teachers in some states,’’ he said.
Amba called on governments at all levels to place high premium on education and accord teachers their pride of place in the society.
“We must brace up as a nation to invest adequately in education by raising its budgetary allocation.
“The allocation should be in line with internationally recommended benchmark of at least four per cent to six per cent of GDP and 15 per cent to 20 per cent of public expenditure,” Amba said.
Recalls that the World Teachers’ Day has been celebrated on Oct. 5 of every year since 1994 as a way of honouring teachers for their contributions to the society. (NAN)
