EDUCATION-NIGERIA: Teachers’ Strike Paralyses Schools

By Toye Olori Reprint | | Print |

Toye Olori

LAGOS, Jun 19 1999 (IPS) - Primary schools throughout Nigeria have been paralysed by teachers’ strike over a new minimum wage.

The strike, which began four months ago, has affected millions of pupils across the vast west African nation of 112 million people.

The teachers, who number about 250,000, are demanding the payment of the new minimum wage of 3,000 naira per month from the local government, their employer. The teachers used to receive a monthly wage of 1,000 naira.

One US Dollar is equal to 95 naira.

The teachers, who are members of the National Executive Council of National Union of Teachers (NUT), are also demanding the establishment of structures for the implementation of a National Commission for Secondary Education and National Teachers Registration Council as well as the setting up of a pension scheme for teachers.

However, there seems to be no end in sight for the strike.

Last week, the Nigeria Labour Congress – an umbrella for the country’s 29 industrial unions – appealed to the striking teachers “to suspend their action and go back to classes in the interest of the pupils who are roaming the streets, as the issue was being addressed by government”.

Gabriel Falade, who is Secretary General of the NUT, rejected the appeal, saying no primary school teacher had been paid since January. “If we tell these angry and hungry teachers to go back to work, they will stone us. We can’t order them to resume work. We can’t go back to classroom now,” he said.

The local councils, under which the primary teachers have been placed, say they have no money to pay the teachers. The government in 1992 transferred the management of the schools from the federal and state governments to the cash-strapped local councils.

About four billion naira is required monthly to pay the minimum wage to primary school teachers, according to education officials in the commercial capital of Lagos.

In Lagos state alone, the minimum wage will increase teachers’ wage bill from 76.5 million naira to 221 million naira per month, representing an increase of 280 percent.

A communique issued at the end of a one-day meeting between the representatives of the NUT and the 20 local government chairmen in the Lagos State this week, blamed the strike on the Federal Government.

“There is an urgent need for an additional fund from the Federal government to the tune of 2.8 billion naira, representing the shortfall in the four billion required monthly for teachers in the country,” the communique said.

Concerned about the length of the strike, legislator Babatunde Olokun on Friday urged the Federal House of Representative, which is based in the capital Abuja, to take urgent steps to resolve the crisis.

“There is need for the House to wade into the crisis because of its adverse effect on the education of primary and secondary school pupils,” said Olokun.

An ad hoc committee has been established by the House to make appropriate recommendations on how best to resolve the crisis.