Education

Teachers’ Day: Kwara Teachers demand special salary scale

 

By Mike Adeyemi

Teachers in Kwara State on Friday joined their counterparts across the globe to celebrate this year’s Teachers’ Day, using the medium to appeal to government to come up with a standard salary scale that would be at par with other professions in the country.
This year’s edition with the theme; “The right to education means the right to a quality Teacher.”
Speaking with our reporter at the NUT Secretariat, Ilorin, the Deputy Chairman, Nigeria Union of Teachers, Kwara wing, Comrade Toyin Saliu urged the state government to review the salary of teachers in order to bring about efficiency in service delivery.
“It is appalling that the welfare of teachers in this part of the world does not commensurate with global practices. Without quality teachers, we cannot get our education right.
“A standard welfare package and good salary scale will no doubt bring about excellent teaching performance and vice versa”.
According to him, Kwara teachers in the recent time had suffered neglect and downtown in the discharge of their duties and this has affected the cognitive and optimal performance.
“Gone are the days when teachers talk from the beginning to the end, now what is in vogue is cooperative teaching. Teaching is more of interactive now than before. The government should make sure that teachers emoluments are paid as at when due.”
On the importance of the celebration, the NUT boss said, the day gives the teachers opportunity to re-examine themselves and correct areas where they fell short of service delivery.
“Once we get education right, we will get teaching right. The children of today are inquisitive not passive. These modern challenges in the inquisitiveness of students have made teachers to have an expansive knowledge about the profession.”
In his remarks, a Speaker, Comrade Danmaigoro Idris, who is the Chairman of NUT in Ilorin East, said that the bane to qualitative education in Nigeria was the deviation from technical colleges to grammar schools.
He said, the value placed on teaching profession today in Nigeria is not palatable.
Similarly, the Ekiti Branch Chairman of NUT, Comrade Oyebode Yemi, said, qualitative education could only be achieved in Nigeria with an all-inclusive efforts.
“The government’s role is sacrosanct; at the same time that of the teachers and parents. But more importantly is that the government should put in place good welfare for the teachers.
“That is how it is done in other climes. Efficient teaching service requires efficient working condition,” he said.


…Kwara govt committed to qualitative education – Commissioner

By Adebayo Olodan

The Kwara State Government has pledged its commitment to the welfare of teachers and qualitative education.
The Commissioner for Education and Human Capital Development, Hajia Bilkisu Oniyangi, made the pledge on Friday, during a seminar for principals of public secondary schools organised by the West African Examination Council (WAEC) at Queen Elizabeth School, Ilorin.
Oniyangi said that teachers play vital roles in the success of schools, saying that the ultimate success of the schools was largely measured by the performance of the students.
She urged teachers to intensify efforts to help students acquire knowledge and engender learning and competence in order to develop the country.
The commissioner, however, warned teachers, who supported students in perpetrating examination malpractices, saying that henceforth, disciplinary actions would be taken against such teachers.
A lecturer from the Institute of Education, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Prof. Francisca Aladejana, called for pedagogical shifts in order to take into consideration theories of learning and understanding of students.
In her paper entitled: “The 21st Century Teachers and Pedagogical Shifts in Basic and Secondary Education”, Aladejana called for blended learning.
She said that blended learning would make a significant difference in the performance of learners, compared to the traditional chalk and talk approach to teaching.

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