Nigeria’s Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu says payment of stipends to Bachelor of Education students as well as granting them automatic employment after graduation is now a federal government policy.
He said this in Abuja at the commemoration of the World Teachers Day on Monday.
President Muhammadu Buhari has also approved a special salary scale for teachers in the country.
He also increased the number of years of service from 35 to 40.
The education minister, Mr Adamu, who represented President Buhari, said the implementation of the new salary scheme was to encourage teachers in delivering better service.
The 2020 theme of the World Teachers’ Day is Teachers: leading in crisis, reimagining the future.
He said teachers have the power to shape and reshape the lives of young people and help learners to enhance their potentials.
“Only great teachers can produce excellent people and students that will make the future of our country great. A positive or negative influence of a teacher on any child will have an effect on that child. Therefore the federal government is ensuring quality education to access,” he said.
Similarly, the Minister of State for Education, Chukuemeka Nwajuiba, identified the teaching profession as the greatest profession in the world which must be accorded adequate recognition and respect.
”In those days, very comfortable and important figures in the society would send their children to a teacher’s house for grooming. That was the teacher then,” he said.
According to him, teachers children and those that lived with them became “the crème de la crème of the society. The society sadly has tilted towards ephemeral appearances that negate the standard of teachers as role models.”
”We think this should stop. Teachers deserve recognition and respect. The first step is to have qualified teachers in practice.”
He said the education ministry through the Teachers Registration Council (TRCN) is making concerted efforts to withdraw unqualified teachers from the classroom nationwide.
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