Not less than 8,000 primary school teachers in Borno State have complained that they are languishing in penury and abject poverty, a situation they say is affecting their professional conduct.
The teachers who further claim to be worse hit by the realities of the present economic hardship added that their plight is not helped by the state government’s insistence on placing them on a monthly salary of between N8,000 to N15000 only.
The embittered teachers who reached out to stressed further that the monthly payment they receive from the government does not cater to their families under the persisting economic hardship.
investigations reveal that these category of teachers were said to have failed the competency test which was conducted for a total of 17,229 primary school teachers in 2021, and as such have been stagnant on the salary range of between N8,000 and N16,000 ever since, as they await their retraining to qualify them for salary increment.
However, following what was observed as “the serious incompetence of the majority of the teachers in the simple literacy and numeracy which they teach their pupils.”
Zulum, in 2021 directed the State Ministry of Education and the State Universal Basic Education Board to conduct the competency test with the aim of weeding out unqualified teachers from the teaching service.
Consequently, the literacy and numeracy competency test was conducted for the 17,229 primary school teachers, out of which 5,439, representing 31 per cent proved competent; 7,975, representing 46.3 per cent not sufficiently competent, but could be retrained; and 3,817, representing 22.1 per cent, not qualified and cannot be retrained.
While fashioning out a programme of retraining the 7,975 insufficiently competent, the state government, which resolved not to sack any worker, planned to transfer the services of the 3,817 completely unqualified teachers to other sectors of the local government service.
Meanwhile, our correspondent gathered that the 5,439 fully qualified teachers immediately started enjoying the N30,000 minimum wage, while, about three years down the line, the 7,975 still awaiting retraining to qualify them for that wage are still receiving a salary range of N8,000 to N16,000.
Thus, these 7,975 stagnant teachers on less than N20,000 and awaiting retraining are complaining of debilitating hardship with a measly salary that can not settle their transport fares to and from their workplaces monthly.
“I have taught for more than 20 years, but my monthly salary is still about N16,000, which I have been collecting for 15 years now,” one of such teachers (Kaka Ahmed), who has a wife and five children, complained to Arewa PUNCH.
“N16,000 cannot afford you five standard measures of rice; let us assume it is you with a wife alone but with children added to the family, and you consume half of that standard measure daily, the five measures will last for only ten days. So, what happens to the family in the remaining 20 days of the month?” He queried Arewa PUNCH, even as he equally proferred a response; “it is scary to imagine what happens,” he said.
The teacher recalled: “We sat for competency test about three years ago, and majority of us, including me, were told that we had failed, but we would soon be retrained to qualify. Those who passed immediately started receiving N30,000 minimum wage, by which most of them are now receiving between N50,000 and N60,000 monthly, but I am still receiving less than N17,000 awaiting to be retrained to qualify for the said minimum wage.”
A female teacher (Talatu ‘Yar Maidoki), who claimed to have taught for 14 years, but still receives N16,900 monthly to survive with her three children whose fathers are no more, cried aloud, “Out of this less than N17,000, I pay N470 for two drops while commuter on tricycle to and from school every day; requested our correspondent to do the calculation and see what’s left of the amount in a month.
“I will be left with less than N8,000 to feed the family for a whole month,” she bemoaned.
“I plead with the state government to hasten our retraining to qualify us and enable us earn the N30,000 minimum wage to assuage the worsening hardship we are suffering,” the B.Sc Sociology and Anthropology holder said.
“I have been teaching for 13 years now, but my monthly salary is N14,500,” another teacher, Abdul-Aziz Muhammad, disclosed, even as he decried the situation.
“By the time we settle out debts, virtually nothing remains for transport fare to our workplaces.”
Continuing, he added: “Creditors do not give most of us teachers loans. They believe that with a salary of less than N15,000 we are not credit-worthy. They believe that if they give you any loan, we may never pay.”
The teacher disclosed further: “In some LGAs, primary school teachers collect N8,000 monthly salary,” lamenting, “Even the N30,000 minimum wage is too meagre to cater to one’s family, let alone less than N10,000.”
He appealed to the state government to introduce special palliatives package for primary school teachers to save them from the persistent hardship caused by what he described as “mean salary.”
Although Muhammed commended Governor Zulum, saying that, “he has done commendably well in palliatives distribution to the poor and the vulnerable, “still, he pleaded, “But he should launch a special palliatives distribution for us teachers because, among all categories of workers, we are most-deserving of these palliatives, as most us earn N15,000 monthly salary.”
The Assistant Secretary and spokesman for the Borno State wing of the Nigerian Union of Teachers, Bako Lawan, appealed to the grieving teachers for a little more patience.
“Government has already approved funds for their retraining at the Colleges of Education at Bama and Waka,” he disclosed, pleading, “So they should exercise a little more patience until they are retrained to enable them earn more salary.”
Lawan disclosed that the teachers for the retraining have been divided into two categories – “They include 2000 diploma holders will be retrained in two instalments of 1000 each; and then there is also a sandwich course about 17,000 NCE holders, to qualify them for the N30,000 minimum wage,” the NUT spokesman disclosed further.
He appealed to the state government to hasten up the retraining of the teachers.
“This payment of N8,000 or N10,000 salary to teachers took place before Zulum became governor, you should know this, first and foremost” the Executive Chairman of Borno State Universal Basic Education Board, Professor Bulama Kagu, noted.
“The competency test was necessitated by the fact that when the governor was touring the LGAs he found out that most of the teachers lacked even the basic literacy and numeracy they are suppose to impart to their pupils.
“The competency test had very simple questions which even the pupils could answer, but it would baffle you to know that even many degree holders among the teachers failed. At the end, only about 25 per cent of the whole 17,229 teachers, 5,439 of them, fully passed.
“Government, therefore, decided that those who passed immediately be placed on the N30,000 minimum wage.
“Government also decided that those that could be retrained among those who failed would undergo a 6-month retraining programme at Colleges of Education, Bama and Waka.
“Similarly, the government also decided that those who failed and cannot be retrained would have their services transfered to other sectors of local government service, because nobody will be sacked from service on account of being unqualified to teach,” Prof Kagu explained.
He appealed for calm before the retraining.