The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) is to spend $850 million for the retraining of teachers in the Northeast region of of Nigeria.
The teachers, most of whom are yet to meet the basic qualifications of the Nigerian Certificate of Education (NCE) would be trained in a two year crash programme for them to be certificated and registered by the Nigerian Teachers Institute (NTI).
Chairman, Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT) Borno State Council, Comrade Jibril Mohammed, told news men that 9,500 out of 27,000 of such deficient teachers will come from Borno state.
The chairman said that the UNICEF intervention was in response to the demands of Governor Babagana Zulum that all teachers of primary schools must attain the minimum standard of NCE before he leaves office.
Jibrin said that training and retraining will surely continue if all the teaching staff of the State are to meet up with the minimum requirements of the Teachers Registration Council.
On suspended staff, the chairman said that 1,224 teachers kept out of the classroom have been returned back to their jobs.
“We fought hard for them to be reinstated but we are very much worried that their arrears are yet to be paid to them. It is our hope that the government will soon pay them their eight months backlog and grant those who need promotion their dues accordingly” said the chairman.
Earlier in a news conference to celebrate this year’s World Teachers Day, the chair said that the celebration was low key because the state is still in a state of insurgency, regretting that about 30 teachers died during the period under review while two were abducted by insurgents and one is still at large with his whereabouts still unknown to the union.
Comrade Jibril lamented that his members are the largest workforce in the State yet most of his members are yet to be placed on the minimum wage of N30,000.
