Chairman of the Cross River State chapter of the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT), Comrade Gregory Olayi, has appealed to governor Bassey Edet Otu to engage 10,000 teachers to boost the state’s primary and secondary education sectors.
Olayi made the request at the 2023 World Teachers’ Day celebration held at NUT Secretariat in Calabar yesterday.
Speaking on the theme, “The teachers we need for the education we want: The global imperative to reverse teachers’ shortage”, Olayi said, “About 10,000 teachers are needed in the secondary schools and more in the primary schools.
“We are in demand for training and retraining of teachers in the science and provision of functional laboratories and workshops for students in schools.
“There is also the need for employment of more teachers to service the system. Available statistics revealed that there is an acute shortage of teachers in the school system.”
While expressing displeasure over what he described as poor treatment of teachers by the state government and decayed infrastructure in public schools, Olayi called for revamping of the educational system, provision of an enabling environment and increased remuneration for teachers for increased productivity.
“As I speak with you, for some years now, primary school head teachers buy chalk, school and class room registers with their own money without anything being done by the state government.
“There is a need for the state government to step up its game. Promotions are not implemented. I feel that this new government should look into this issue so that the educational system doesn’t die,” he said.
On his part, the state commissioner for education Stephen Odey who was represented by the director of schools’ department in the Ministry of Education, Mrs Okama Ubi, said the government was doing everything humanly possible to ensure that matters involving teachers were kept at the front burner.
