FG assures qualified teachers of welfare, incentives

The federal government has assured qualified teachers of improved working conditions for optimum productivity. Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education, Mr. Sonny Echono, disclosed this in an interview with journalists, after monitoring the computer-based test teachers’ professional qualification examination in Abuja at the weekend.

Echono said that the federal government is looking at ensuring a strong foundation for education, stressing that producing qualified teachers is the starting point to revamp the education sector.

“We must have committed and qualified teachers; we also want to ensure that the teaching environment is in order.

“We have done a lot in terms of our curriculum and we will continue to enhance the curriculum to make it more responsible to the needs of tomorrow and the future.

“Teachers welfare will be our top priority in order to attract more hands into the teaching profession and to avoid migration to other greener pastures,” he said.

Speaking on the Local Government Autonomy bill, Echono said that Predident Muhammadu Buhari has teachers’ welfare at heart and has ensured they got their salaries and other allowances in good time.

“We are pushing that they should have direct fund charge, so that they will be paid same way as our legislators and judiciary officers

“We are looking to other allowances to encourage teachers in the area of science and rural posting; we are going to be rolling out big adult literacy programmes in 2020.

“We discovered that over 50 million of our people missed out first opportunity to get education. We do not want to waste money and build new schools or facilities. We will use existing facilities across the country,” Echono stated

He further stated that the programme would be run in the evening or weekends to help promote adult education for those working to support their family.

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“Our teachers will now have additional work and income by teaching the curriculum that we have developed. The programme will also focus on the girl-child and we have 11 focused states.

“We have a lot of efforts to make to correct the negative figures we have in terms of access to education and quality learning,” he said.

He commended the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN) for organising what he described as a “transparent exams process” in 47 computer based test centres across country.

“More than 77,000 candidates are writing the examination across the 36 states including the FCT under the close supervision of TRCN,” he said.

According to him, the December 31 deadline to end quackery in the teaching profession in Nigeria still stands, adding that “the exams will continue, but today is just a final exam before the December 31 deadline. After this, we are going to move those who are not qualified outside the system.”

The permanent secretary said that the government is working on creating a teachers data base to collate the data of certified and qualified teachers.

“Anyone not certified or qualified to teach will not have any place in our classroom. We will begin the implementation in January 2020.

“We have also asked the TRCN to continue the examination to accommodate individuals who are just registering or who intend to write the exams,” Echono added.

He said that computer literacy was now compulsory for anyone aspiring to be a teacher.

Prof. Josiah Ajiboye, the Registrar of TRCN, in his remarks, said that Africa alone has a deficit of seven million teachers and that Nigeria accounts for the largest number.