By Ozioruva Aliu
PRIMARY school teachers in Edo state Monday defied the state government directive to resume schools today as they stayed away on the directive of state chapter of Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT).
A visit to some public primary schools across the state showed that there were no academic activities.
But some staff of the local government education authority and State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) were sighted addressing pupils in some schools.
In Ogbe Primary school, the gate of the school was initially shut and some pupils were loitering around the area until men of the Public Works Volunteer (PUWOV) came and forced the gate open to allow pupils into the empty premises. The pupils present about twenty were led to a classroom by an official said to have come from the local government education authority .
Obaseki opens schools, warns teachers over strike
On
By Ozioruva Aliu
EDO state government and primary school teachers may heading for a clash as the state government has announced that schools would resume on Monday but threatened to implement no work no pay against primary school teachers who are threatening to embark on strike.
It would be recalled that the leadership of the Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT) had directed its members to embark on an indefinite strike over unsettled issues.
But a statement yesterday by the Secretary to State Government (SSG), Osarodion Ogie Esq said schools would resume in the state on Monday and insisted that all public-school teachers and head teachers are required to be present in their various schools as failure to resume work would be considered forfeiture of salary, adding that the “government has activated the No Work, No Pay policy.”
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The stage is set for a battle between the Edo State government and primary schools teachers as academic activities resume in the state on February 1 with the teachers’ union, the Nigerian Union of Teachers, directing the teachers not to resume work.
This was just as the state government on Friday announced a “no work no pay policy over the matter.
The state government had penultimate week, closed down all schools in the state till February 1 in the wake of the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic in the country and on Friday, approved the resumption of full academic activities for public primary schools in the state on Monday, February 1.
Those who eat our children’s dreams
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Thu Jan 28 2021
In a hospital in Katsina last week, Kubra Khalil (not her real name) cradled her newborn and tried breastfeeding it but she could not produce milk for the baby. Kubra herself is a child. She is only 12 years old.
In the hospital, her mother, also nursing a baby Kubra’s sibling is caught between caring for her own three-month-old baby, or her daughter and her newborn grandchild.
The man responsible for 12-year-old Kubra’s situation is 38. He was her teacher and the vice-principal of her school in Kadandani of Rimi Local Government of Katsina State. He is married, not to one or two but to three women. His name is Ibrahim Saleh and that is his real name.
The union has been in series of meeting with state and local government representatives last year over protracted issues of non-payment and implementation of N30,000 minimum wage, promotions and salary arrears owed primary school teachers.
In a communique, they said the government had disregarded the series of negotiations and resolutions reached to address the demands before December 2020.
The ultimatum takes effect on Tuesday, NUT Bayelsa said in a communique signed by its chairman Kalaama Tonpre and secretary Johnson Hector.
“Should the problems mentioned above remain unresolved till the expiration of the fourteen days ultimatum, primary school teachers in the state would have no other option than to down tools,” it said.