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Omoniyi Salaudeen
This year’s Teachers’ Day celebration in Nigeria came with a big bang, courtesy of President Muhammadu Buhari’s new National Teaching Policy approved for the profession. Like their counterparts in other parts of the world, October 5 is a day teachers have always looked up to with a lot of excitements, as it offers them unique opportunity to be appreciated as nation builders. The idea of celebrating Teachers’ Day took a firm root in many countries during the 20th Century as a way of recognizing educators or important milestones in education.
As a standard practice, corporate organizations, concerned bodies as well as governments at different levels have over the years used the occasion to honour distinguished individuals who had made special contributions in a particular field, or a community in general.
For this year’s event, Nigerian teachers got more than they bargained for. It was like no other before it. Without the conventional muscle-flexing approach often adopted by the organized labour to arm-twist the government to accede to its wishes, President Buhari willy-nilly rolled out a long list of mouth-watering benefits for the teachers. He changed the old narrative and rekindled the hope for the future of the teaching profession.
Among other things, he announced the establishment of a Special Salary Scale for teachers in both basic and secondary school level education, increased their retirement by age from 60 to 65 or retirement by service from 35 to 40, introduced peculiar and rural allowances, increased science allowance as well as automatic admission and tuition free for kids of teachers at their work place. He also approved automatic recruitments of B.Ed graduating students. Under the new arrangement, Bachelor of Education students are to enjoy stipends or education special allowance, while education students in colleges of education and universities are to enjoy special bursary awards. Henceforth, TETFUND will be used to fund teaching practices. And above all, special teachers’ pension scheme is to be established.
If the policy is faithfully implemented across all levels of government, teachers may no longer need to wait till heaven comes before they enjoy the fruits of their labour. Until now, that had always been a butt of derisive joke among the people who have disdain for the profession and for which reason young applicants now choose education as a last resort.
It is instructive to note that the largesse for the teachers is coming at a time when the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) is holding the Federal Government by the jugular for sundry reasons bordering on disagreement with the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System, IPPIS, and the failure of government to honour its 2019 agreement. For the records, the union began its current round of industrial action on March 23 in the wake of incident case of COVID-19 in Nigeria. With the steady flattening of curve for the dread disease, the National Universities Commission (NUC) in conjunction with the Federal Ministry of Education had announced October 12 for the re-opening of schools for academic activities, but the recalcitrant ASUU remained adamant. For schools to reopen, the union insisted, two conditions must be met – payment of arrears of salaries of its members and good learning environment for the students.
The National President of ASUU, Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi said: “The ongoing strike will continue and school will not reopen until the government provides good lecture halls, equipment for the students and also pay salaries of lecturers.
“We also have children who are students in these schools; everything ASUU is doing is about students and Nigeria. If we have a good education, students will be proud of their certificates and our universities will be able to reckon with globally.”
While the battle line appears to have been drawn, President Buhari has minced no words in declaring that only workers captured on the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System platform would be paid salaries. He made the declaration during the presentation of the proposed 2021 Budget of N13 trillion to the National Assembly on Thursday. According to him, the decision not to pay federal workers not captured on the IPPIS is to reduce personnel cost.
His words: “Personnel cost is still our largest single item of expenditure. In the seven months to 31st July 2020, it accounted for 34 per cent of total Federal Government spending and is projected at 33 per cent of 2021 expenditure.
“To check the incidence of payments to non-existent personnel and unauthorised allowances, only Federal staff that have been captured on the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS) platform will receive salaries.
“All agencies have been directed to ensure that they obtain all necessary approvals before embarking on any fresh recruitment. Any breach of these directives will be severely sanctioned.”
This is like a case of using different strokes for different folks. And it is very doubtful, if ASUU could count on the sympathy of Nigerians using the rhetoric about its concern for the standard of university education. For all it cares, it is evident that the incessant paralysis of academic activities at the nation’s ivory tower has done more damage than good. And as they say, ‘you cannot build something on nothing.’ In most cases, in order for schools to cover the lost ground, the usual practice has always been for the lecturers to rush the students and hurriedly conduct examinations and ultimately churn out half-baked graduates. This is the point at which the Nigerian university system lost its global respectability. While the government owes the nation a duty to provide adequate funding for the universities nay education in general, it also behoves on the ASUU to devise a better approach to deal with issues its holds dear to its heart. As germane as the argument for better learning condition for the students is, it has lost its appeal. For most Nigerians, it is height of hypocrisy. Only a change of approach could improve the system.
