Ahead of the May Day celebrations on May 1st 2023, the recently elected Chairman of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) FCT Chapter, Comrade Stephen Knabayi, has urged the entirety of the workers to be vigilant and remain steadfast in the struggle to eliminate all forms of illegal, oppressive and discriminatory practices and policies against Nigerian workers.
Knabayi who is also the Chairman Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT) FCT Chapter stressed that they will emerge victorious and triumphant at the end of the day.
The veteran union leader who spoke to journalists in Abuja also dwelt on some of the issues affecting the workers (teachers) in the FCT and the steps taken by his leadership to tackle them.
He said the new NLC leadership is advancing workers’ rights and privileges in all spheres including the regular payment of the minimum wage salaries and arrears, promotional arrears, backlog of pensions and gratuities, the constant training and re-training of teachers, provision of modern teaching tools and gadgets and the non-termination of teachers services without due process.
Comrade Stephen Knabayi has severally cautioned the Area Councils against any untoward sacking of LEA teachers as part of any staff rationalisation process, stating that they cannot be used and discarded at the whims and caprices of those in authority.
Knabayi also reeled off some of his landmark achievements as well as other surmountable challenges lying ahead, saying: “We have quite a number of projects, programs and initiatives which the Almighty God has enabled us to achieve that was not there before my election as NUT Chairman.
“For instance we have been able to include the primary and secondary school teachers in the newly harmonised age retirement scale of 65 years, an increase of 5 years that was not in operation before we came on board. Also promotions for teachers in the FCT has been more regular as well as the payment of promotion arrears without promotion issues attached to them.
“We have also been able to expand the number of NUT branches in the FCT by an additional four branches for administrative convenience, better co-ordination and better information disermination to our teeming members.
“Also by the Grace of the Almighty God, we have been able to facilitate the payment of the N30,000 monthly minimum wage to our teachers, something that is non-existent in many states of the federation.
“Also the arrears of minimum wage has been paid to the secondary school teachers while those of the primary school teachers will be paid as soon as possible.
“We have also being able to expand the membership of the NUT Co-operative Society during this leadership from 3,000 to 16,000 active members. Under my close watch, the number of teachers recruited in the various Local Education Authority (LEA) schools and state schools in the FCT has also increased with the quality of teaching also recording remarkable improvement from the past scenario.”
He said the standard of education has been raised drastically due to “our diligent monitoring of teachers’ performance and this also applies to the performance of our students in WAEC and NECO examinations which has risen to historic levels.
“This is because we holistically supervise the teachers to ensure that they are doing their work well. Disciplinary cases against our teachers has been reduced as a result of our commitment to talking to our teachers to be dedicated in performing their duties with the fear of God in their hearts. You can see that in the last 3-5 years, there has been no disciplinary case(s) against any FCT teacher as discipline,competence and efficiency has become the watchword in the work ethic of our teachers.
“We have also been able to ensure that pension and contributory payments to teachers are regular and adequate and there has been fewer complaints from our teachers unlike what obtained in the past. This is because we have a machinery to monitor the contributory payments from both the government and the employers to ensure that they get to the appropriate beneficiaries.
“We have testimonies of teachers who have been paid their pensions when they retire without delay though there are still some issues which are gradually being tackled by our monitoring teams. Also we have been able to work together with the FCT SUBEB on the lingering cases of over 5,000 teachers who paid for laptops which were not given to them. As l am speaking to you, over 4,000 teachers have been issued with their laptops which is assisting them in discharging their teaching responsibilities in accordance with our advanced I.T/ information age.
“Another milestone which we have recorded is the construction of a 42- room ultra-modern, state of the art NUT Secretariat, the Teachers House unlike the dilapidated structure we had in the past. These are a few of the key achievements, this executive has recorded in the past few years of my stewardship,” he said.
The veteran also revealed that “On the critical issue of training and re-training of teachers, the FCT administration especially the FCT UBEC, the FCT Education Board under the FCT Education Secretariat has tried their best to train our teachers and the NUT has also been involved in the training and re-training of teachers in order to build their capacity, competence and performance in the teaching profession.
“And we are utilising this medium to call on the FCTA to increase their support for the Education Secretariat in this critical area because our teachers need the required training to meet up with the challenges of teaching and educating pupils at this crucial time we are in. If there is anything a teacher needs more than renumeration, it is education,training and re-training. So we call on the FCTA to see what they can do to improve the quality of education, training and re-training of teachers in the FCT.”
Dwelling on the challenges facing the teaching workforce in the FCT, he said: “We don’t have issues with the payment of teachers salaries in the FCT, we have no issues there. But we have issues regarding the payment of arrears; arrears of minimum wage and arrears of promotions basically. We have made our position clear to the FCT Area Councils through the necessary organs for quick action on the issues, and the meeting we held, particularly the one of yesterday ( 4th October 2022) it is receiving attention for quick resolution.”
Distinguishing between the teaching and the educational sector, Comrade Knabayi noted that the problems facing the educational system were multifarious ranging from paucity of infrastructure, shortage of teachers, overcrowding of classrooms amongst others: “When you talk of the education sector in general, that is quite different from the remuneration of teachers and l can tell you that there are quite a number of issues from lack of infrastructure and pack of adequate teachers in the system.
“We also have issues that have to do with low regard for the teaching profession and overcrowding of pupils in classrooms contrary to internationally prescribed standards.
“We also have issues that have to do with adequate training and re-training of teachers and so these are issues in the overall education sector which needs to be tackled, while not forgetting the issues of teachers’ renumeration, the payment of arrears of minimum wage and arrears of promotions etc which need to be resolved as soon as possible because the teachers and the unions have been very patient.”
