Kaduna teachers divided over strike

Kaduna teachers appear divided over the ongoing indefinite strike action by the Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT).

While some teachers want an end to the strike, others want it to go on till government is ready to rescind its decision on the sack of 21,780 teachers said to have failed an exam conducted to test their competency.

The strike is also setting some teachers against the NUT.

The state chapter of NUT had on Sunday issued a notice to its members across the state; directing the indefinite strike beginning from Monday but the state government in its reaction had threatened to dismiss any teacher participating in the strike.

Since the strike commenced on Monday, some teachers have been going to school but could not teach due to the strike while the few pupils who showed up in school were sent back home.

A teacher in a school told our reporter that while they were at school, about six NUT officials came to threaten them to lock up the school. “They eventually left when they saw that we were not ready to compromise our own stand. Government should be allowed to reform the state’s educational sector. NUT has its own selfish interest, we are tired and want to go back to our work,” the teacher said.

But NUT Chairman, Zaria Local Government Area, Yahaya Abbas described the strike as inevitable since the state government had ignored efforts to meet the teachers’ demands.

Meanwhile, the Kaduna State Universal Basic Education (SUBEB) has accused NUT of disrupting teaching and learning in primary and secondary schools in the state by forcing teachers to participate in what it described as ‘unlawful’ strike.

A permanent member of SUBEB, Shehu Sani Othman, who addressed newsmen Tuesday, said that the visit by education secretaries to schools showed that the teachers willingly resumed work but they were dispersed by the union.