The Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, says the federal government has approved N75,000 as a stipend per semester for students of degree programmes in Education in public universities in the country.
He also said the Nigeria Certificate in Education students would receive N50,000 as a stipend per semester.
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This, according to him, is to attract the best brains to the teaching profession and encourage the best graduates to take up careers in teaching.
He spoke in Abuja on Tuesday at an event to mark the 2021 World Teachers’ Day with the theme ‘Teachers at the Heart of Education Recovery’.
The minister, represented by the permanent secretary, Sonny Echono, said his ministry would collaborate with the state governments to ensure automatic employment for the students on graduation.
“Undergraduate students of B.Ed/B.A. Ed/BSc. Ed in Public institutions are to receive stipends of N75,000.00 per semester; while NCE students will get N50,000.00 as stipends per semester.
“Federal Government should find the modality through which respective states’ governments could provide automatic employment for NCE graduates at Basic Education level,” he said.
Adamu said the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria should review the National Teacher Education Policy and other policies on teaching careers; NCCE to review the Ministerial Strategic Plan and the previous policies on teacher retention and the phrase ‘first-class graduates’ should be changed to “high flyers.”
President Muhammadu Buhari said the implementation of most of the targets in the repositioning of teachers would be achieved by January 2022.
He also assured that outstanding salaries of affected teachers would be paid before December 2021.
Represented by the Minister of State for Education, Emeka Nwajiuba, Buhari said the Ministry of Education had commenced the pilot implementation of the increase in the retirement age to 65 or 40 years of service for teachers and education officers.
President, Nigerian Union of Teachers, Nasir Idris, said teachers, needed to be adequately equipped, empowered and supported to be effective in carrying out the task of education recovery.
He urged the federal and state governments as well as private individuals to join hands and restore peace, order and peaceful coexistence to ensure the safety of schools and the school communities for the good of the country.
Idris urged “erring” state governments to implement the National Minimum Wage without further delay.
He said primary school teachers’ salaries were not being paid as and when due in some states.
He urged the federal government to graciously approve payment of the 27.5% professional allowance to teachers of the Federal Government Colleges.
