Recently, members of staff of the Federal Ministry of Education, including unity schools, under the aegis of Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria, embarked on an indefinite strike in protest over delay by the ministry in the payment of backlog of arrears and allowances for staff since 2007. AUGUSTINE OKEZIE took up an interview appointment with Comrade Emeka Okonta, chairman NUT FEDWING. Excerpts:
Can you tell us why the Unity Schools and the ministry are shut down across the country?
We are on strike because of the backlog of arrears of promotion of the staff, not only unity schools but the staff of the Federal Ministry of Education, as you know, some of our members are at the ministry as none teaching staff, so all us put together are on strike, that is why you see that both the ministry headquarters, the schools; the inspectorate and other agencies that has to do with the ministry of education are closed basically, because of backlog of arrears. This is as far back as 2007 till date, I am also involved, so you can imagine how it is. And something happened last year, the ministry introduced divide and rule strategy whereby some people were paid their arrears around June, July and August while most people were not paid and all efforts to get the government to approve the payment has proved abortive. There are many other issues but these are the basics.
What is the extent of your discussions with the Federal Government on this issue?
Of course, I cannot tell you in details what is on board, because I am in Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) and the people that are behind the agitation is the Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria but I heard that they met with the Minister of Labour and Productivity, Chief Chukwuemeka Wogu and government through the minister has been pleading that we go back to work, but our members said we are not going back until that money is paid or at least, when there is evidence that government has started doing something concrete about the payments.
There was this allegation by your members that N1.8B was released to the ministry of education to settle this backlog of arrears this year, how true is that?
Yes, the communiqué released by our members contained the said amount, it is also in the news and apart from that N1.8b, and we learnt that in the previous years, monies had been released for this same purpose but nothing or little has been done. One of The most annoying thing is that, recently, the ministry’s permanent secretary, Dr. MacJohn Nwaobiala ordered that, the ministry should compile the arrears of 2012 till date thereby leaving that of 2007 to 2011 and so some of us don’t see the reason for that but our union is insisting that the ministry must compile everything and pay everyone at once. These divide and rule game cannot get us anywhere and it has to stop now.
But the Permanent secretary has long denied the release of the said N1.8b as alleged by your union?
Well, just as I said earlier, it is not the NUT that is on the forefront of this course, why we are concerned is because we are affected, I don’t know and I cannot put it to him if it is true or not. But you should know that, there is no smoke without fire.
Already, we have the issues of declining education standard in the entire post basic subsector, with the ongoing strike, what do you foretell in the sector?
The truth is that, the whole secret in the sector is coming to the open now. You know teachers are somehow naïve, they don’t go into struggling like other unions, and it is the accumulated problems and total neglect in the human capacity that is resulting in the mass failure which everybody is talking about now. Already, teacher’s salaries are very poor even in unity schools, their salaries cannot be compared with even the agencies in the ministry. Even the teacher’s salary structure, that is the ‘teacher’s peculiar allowance’ is not getting to us, federal ministry of education is not paying these allowances to federal teachers, federal government is not implementing these incentives for teachers which states are implementing already. This backlog of arrears is another issue, you give somebody promotion, even my arrears at grade level 10 is still hanging while I am in level 15 as an assistant director, not only me, many of my colleagues are facing the same challenges.
Those who were paid were people who were able to lobby their own but majority of us has not been paid. Now tell me, how can a teacher put in his/her best when their own welfare is not taken care of? Apart from that, it has not been like this in the past, because somebody may ask, ‘but you were doing well before now, has the salary changed’?, there were many incentives that were there before now for instance, the teacher’s accommodation, the house master’s allowance, science teacher’s allowance among others, all these allowances are no longer there, the truth is, the system cannot move on like that. There are many issues in the system; withdrawal of all these incentives has resulted in the lack of commitment by the teachers.
The examination bodies are not helping matters either, while talking about poor performances generally, exam bodies like WAEC, NECO, are they helping matters? How possible is it that, students gets access to question papers before the commencement of exams? This is seriously affecting the system. Students on their part are not helping matters either, the zeal or interest in studding is no longer there. They would rather prefer Facebook, chat on line; ping and things like that. Parents are not helping matters either, by the time you discipline a child, the parents who may be well placed in the society, will go to the extent of beating up the teacher and tomorrow, I can assure you that, that teacher will never care even if that child is killing him/herself.
The society itself doesn’t respect teachers either. Look at the National Award given last week; did you hear that any teacher was rewarded? Even cooks, taxi drivers; traffic warders were awarded, but the teacher who produced the President, Senators and all the high and mighty in the society, were not remembered. It looks as if everybody is against teachers. Even in the appointment of Principals, it is not fairly done because, if it is fairly done, things will work-out well; these are the things that have hindered the system for many decades in this country and it will continue to be worse if something is not done fast.
There is this allegation that some officers of the ministry lobby to become Principal in most of these unity schools, how true is that?
Lobbing is a mild way of putting it, if there is anything that is more than lobby, they do that. When you say lobby, it looks very mature, what some of us do just to become a school Principal is better imagined and this is adversely affecting the system.
Federal government recently launched the e-curriculum aimed at assisting both teaching and learning, how do you think this will improve the system?
What we do in this country is to always launch one project or the other without first of all upgrading the people that will man the projects. The e-curriculum was a very good idea, but first thing first, teachers need to be trained and retrained.
The minister or the chief executives cannot implement these projects. Like in the case of this e-curriculum, most teachers are still struggling to send text messages with their mobile phones and you are talking about making use of online curriculum. Even the students are far ahead of the teachers. Teachers should be put in the proper perspective to be able to embrace all the innovations in the system. Students supposed to have confidence in their teachers. The e-curriculum or any other innovation at that will not be properly utilized if the teachers are not properly trained to man them.
Another issue is quality assurance in the system. Talking about mass failure in our exams, the quality assurance department which is the engine room is not functional; there is no institution that can perform well without quality assurance. In the federal ministry of education, there is what is called ‘Federal Inspectorate Service’, now ‘Quality Assurance Service Department’, as we speak, nothing is going on in that department, and it has become moribund. I believe it is this same lack of funds that is also affecting them. These inspectorate divisions which are supposed to monitor both the state and federal schools are not working; most of them don’t have what it takes to do the job.
Federal government plans to scrap Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria, which NUT is kicking against. Really, do you think there is anything like teaching professionalism in Nigeria and how do you think that teachers can passionately do their job?
Teaching is one of the oldest professions in the world, so the issue of teaching professionalism does not arise in the first place. Meanwhile, what is the need or the rationale behind scraping TRCN? There are many other professional bodies out there, why must it be teacher’s body that is good to be scraped? How do you then monitor teachers if the council scrapped? Rather, what the federal government should do is to energize the system to carry out its duties properly. If TRCN is well funded, nobody will ever recommend it for scrapping but because the body is being starved of funds, it appears so ordinary. Universities, basic education has their own bodies, so why scrap that of post basic?
Until the federal government declares emergency in education, there will still be mass failure or poor performance in the system.
