Posted by From OLUWOLE AKINBOYEWA, Abuja on
Teachers in the nation's primary and secondary schools have threatened to embark on a full-blown strike in the next seven days if their demand for a 'teachers salary structure" (TSS) was not met.
Teachers in the nation's primary and secondary schools have threatened to embark on a full-blown strike in the next seven days if their demand for a 'teachers salary structure" (TSS) was not met.
A communiqué released at the end of the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) National Executive Council (NEC) meeting in Abuja and released on Tuesday, warned that an indefinite strike may ensue, effective June 25, should government fail to issue an enabling circular implementing the TSS.
Addressing journalists at the end of the meeting, NUT Deputy National President, Comrade Onem Nelson Onem, said the package should contain detailed salaries and allowances and an inbuilt periodic self-adjustment mechanism for all the affected teachers.
He said the council-in-session had resolved to give another seven-day grace period, within which all necessary measures relating to the issuance of the circular would have been concluded, adding that another NEC would convene on June 24, to take decision on the next line of action.
Onem stated that the Federal Government's implementation of a TSS needed a back up establishment circular, as an administrative instrument upon which process of its implementation would be worked out.
He stressed that the circular should also direct the immediate implementation of the salary structure based on the parameters of the agreement between the federal and state governments, through the National Council on Education (NCE) and assented to by the National Salaries, Income and Wages Commission (NSIWC).
The NUT chief urged President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua to ensure that appropriate measures were issued to formalize the teachers' salary, enhance a long-term educational system of enhanced teachers welfare in Nigeria.
He stressed that the circular implementation was not the responsibility of the state governments but a benchmark or guide, directing them to act as required.
Onem regretted that the concluded three-day warning strike, being a lesson to all stakeholders, was not pleasing to the council but remained an option in its struggle of actualizing good education in the country.
'We are not strike hungry because our children are involved and because education is the key to assist the nation to move to the next level. Without a teacher, there is no development", he observed.
Onem also advised government to call to order, the Minister of Labour, Dr. Hassan Lawal. He expressed gratitude to the National Assembly for its intervention and urged it to prevail on government to issue the TSS circular immediaately.