NUT tasks FG, FCTA on teachers’ welfare, good working condition

From Fred Ezeh, Abuja

Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT) has challenged the Federal and State governments, as well as the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA), to prioritize the welfare of basic education teachers.

The Union said that such adequate attention and care for teachers, as well as conducive working conditions and environment, will encourage the teachers to put in their best in providing foundational education for the children who are the future of Nigeria.

NUT President, Comrade Titus Amba, made the demand at the Union’s 2025 Solemn Assembly, in Abuja, where basic school teachers from across the 36 states and the FCT meet to pray and chart the way forward for the new year.

The Union’s President also added that the annual Solemn Assembly is also an opportunity for the teachers to pray together, and strengthen things that bind them together, managing its internal crisis especially leadership well.

He said that for teachers to stop engaging in strike action and strengthen their commitment to duty, the federal government must fund education properly, give teachers their dues and listen to them anytime they call.

With reference to the periodic teachers’ strike in FCT, the NUT President queried the rationale behind implementing the minimum wage for a set of workers and ignored the teachers. “It seems the only language the government understands is industrial action. That is the only time they will call to ask what is happening as if they are not aware.”

The NUT President also said the proposal by the Federal Government for uninterrupted 12 years basic education will be counterproductive, stressing that it will not change anything in terms of delivering quality education.

He said the only solution is for the Federal Government to fund education properly and not to change the nomenclature. “And I want to say that is there any change about that? There is no change. It’s the same thing. It’s not the issue of the system or the policy, but the funding. Whether you give it 6-3-3-4, 12 year or whatever, the issue is not that one, the basics is the funding.

“This is so that we avoid the issue of longer strikes and all what not. If you go to our schools, I stand to be corrected, more especially in the remote villages, you will be shocked to see the kind of infrastructures there. You will find that children are sitting on the bare floor to receive lectures.

“Teachers don’t even get working materials. There are schools today, I tell you that teachers buy chalk. Should we be using chalk to write even on the board up to this point? So these are things that are supposed to have been of the past.

“These are some of the reasons parents that have the financial capacity send their wards to private schools where they find, at least, an average teaching environment. But the most qualified teachers are at the public schools, but they are not well funded. These are the situations that we find ourselves in. So, the basic thing is to fund education very well. Not changing the nomenclature.”

Meanwhile, the two officiating Clerics, Imam Muhammad Bin Uthman and Rev. Emmanuel Nama, prayed for Nigerian teachers, leaders, kidnapped victims, unemployed youths, the sick as well as for a better year.

Uthman urged the teachers to make themselves accessible to their students, and be more committed to their task despite the unfavourable working conditions and environment, while Rev. Nama asked them not to leave their calling in teaching in search of greener pasture because they are doing a blessed work.