By Kula Tersoo
Primary school teachers in Benue state yesterday resumed classes bringing to an end the about seven months’ industrial action that had crippled the education sector in the state.
Our correspondent who visited some schools, including LGEA Demekpe, St. Catherine’s Primary School, St. Theresa’s Primary School amongst others within the Makurdi metropolis, saw teachers conducting pupils to clean up the premises.
Primary school teachers in the state had embarked on a prolonged strike, insisting that as civil servants too, they must be included in the N18, 000 national minimum wage.
But an agreement to end the strike was signed last week with between representatives of Benue state government and the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) at the latter’s national secretariat where the teachers also conceded over two years of the arrears of the national minimum wage and accepted to be paid in installments the seven months government refused to pay while the strike lingered.
However, yesterday, though pupils were few in the schools visited, the teachers confirmed that on their part, they were all in attendance. They lamented the decay in the schools, saying that it would take a complete one week to put things in shape before normal classes would resume.
At Demekpe, Mr. Iorliam Michael said: “As you can see, this place is bushy. In fact, we have discovered the entire school premises were turned into defaecatory arena. We will have to take time and clean up before lessons will commence.”
On whether government has honoured the agreement, the Makurdi branch first vice-chairman of the NUT, Paul Hwande, said payment was supposed to commence on Friday and that they got information that other local governments got alerts for two months as stipulated in the agreement.
“In Makurdi, we are yet to receive but we are hopeful we will get ours today. We assumed that perhaps it was Friday, the banks could not complete all the transactions.”
