Amosun Promises Promotion
Ogun State Governor, Senator Ibikunle Amosun, yesterday promised to approve pending teachers’ promotion just as he has approved the payment of outstanding leave bonuses for public servants in the state.
While speaking in Abeokuta, Ogun State capital during the 2017 World Teachers’ Day celebration with the theme ‘Teaching in freedom and Empowering Teachers’, Amosun said :”Teachers as well as civil servants will begin to receive their leave bonuses any moment from now’’.
He added that: “Public servants are important in the present administration that is why we must look after their well-being”.
He noted that the importance of teachers in reshaping and developing the society could not be quantified, saying the celebration of the teachers’ day was an opportunity for the professionals to take stock of their roles in nation building. Amosun emphasised that education remained the bedrock of the nation, as “teachers play key role in transforming the lives of our children.
“We’ll continue to provide conducive learning environment that will aid the process of teaching and learning. I also want to assure that your promotion and other entitlements will be duly attended to’’.
While appreciating teachers for being key players in transmitting values and morals to children, Amosun charged them to always adopt modest approach in making their requests known to government.
Earlier in her welcome address, the Commissioner for Education, Science and Technology, Mrs. Modupe Mujota noted that the occasion provided the opportunity to appreciate the invaluable contributions of teachers to national development.
Mujota underscored the partnership that existed between stakeholders in the education sector and government towards actualising its agenda on education, urging the teachers to work for the overall development of the noble profession through self- development.
However, on her part, Chairman, Ogun State Teaching Service Commission, (TESCOM), Mrs. Olabosipo Ogunsan advised teachers in the state to work harder at raising the educational standard as this would justify the huge investment of government in the sector. 120 cut-off mark implies 30%, a percentage that is not in conformity with merit pass in any examination”.
In the speech read by the Senior Assistant Secretary General, Mr. Tenense Gilbert Titus, Olukoya, said “We are not equally unaware of the age long cry over falling standard of education in Nigeria, of which the blame is always contemptuously put at the door steps of the teacher
“Against this backdrop, the NUT wishes to express its reservations to this policy of admission into Nigerian universities and urge the federal ministry of education and other relevant agencies to review the policy for the improvement of the standard of education in Nigeria”.
Alogba said the union was opposed to the recruitment of non- teachers under the N-power scheme adding that “recruitment of non- graduates constitutes a “huge contradiction to the laudable efforts being made by the federal government through the Teachers Registration Council in ensuring professionalism in teaching to rid the school system of non- professionals and quack teachers”
In his address, the acting governor of Niger State, Alhaji Mohammed Ahmed Ketso, said the government would soon begin the implementation of a pre- retirement training for civil servants.
The training, he said would make civil servants to be self- employed after their service and know how to properly invest their retirement benefits.
Chairperson of the NUT End Well Micro Finance Bank, Hajia Dije Bala, urged teachers to increase their savings in the bank as a way to improving their financial standing after retirement.