Teachers in primary and post-primary schools in Kwara State have asked the state government to increase their retirement age to 70 years.
Speaking at the occasion marking the 2016 World Teachers Day celebration in Ilorin, on Wednesday, the state chairman of the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT, Comrade Musa Abubakar, said that the vacuum created by the retired teachers in the state in recent time would be difficult to fill within next decade.
“Teachers suffer same fate all over the world irrespective of their tier of operation. Justice demand that they should be bound by common destiny. The extension of retirement age of professors in the tertiary institutions to 70 years be extended to teachers who constitute foundation of education i.e. primary and secondary education”, he said.
The NUT chairman, who said that teachers in primary school had not been promoted since 2013, added that their counterpart in the Teaching Service Commission also suffered.
“We also demand promotion letters for the categories of teachers that have completed all formalities of promotion in SUBEB and TESCOM be released with immediate effect while those that are qualified be subjected to all rudimentary of promotion”, he said.
The Kwara state teachers also suggested that a national policy should be formulated to make all public servants withdraw their wards from private schools to public schools.
“There’s need to replicate Governor Nasir Ahmed El-Rufai model on stand on public school. It should be a national policy that all public servants withdraw their wards from private schools to public schools. It should be made a stringent condition for any public office holder. This is the only sure way that the public school which supposed to serve as a common ground for everybody will receive attention”, he said.
Comrade Abubakar also said that the school feeding programme of the federal government should be properly harnessed in order not to be a colossal waste.