As part of activities marking the 2022 World Teachers’ Day, the Federal Government has presented car gifts, computers, refrigerators, cash, and other valuables to the best teachers, administrators, and schools.
Nigeria’s Vice President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo, presented the awards to winners at the 2022 World Teachers’ Day celebration, in Abuja, with the theme: “The Transformation of Education Begins with Teachers.”
October 5 every year is celebrated as World Teachers’ Day, since the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO, 1994 set the day aside to recognize and appreciate the important role teachers play in the transformation of humanity and society.
A teacher with Oke-Edo Senior High School, Allimosho, Lagos State, Adefemi Adeola Adedunke, emerged as the overall winner of the public Senior School category and was awarded a JAC-SUV car, while Ugokwe Marilyn Uchenna won Kia Cerato car, after emerging the overall best in the private school category.
Other winners were the best primary school category won by Mummy’s Place International Nursery and Primary School, Akure, in the private school category while Micheal African Church School 1, Ogun, emerged as overall best public primary school, among other winners.
Vice President, Osinbajo, who represented President Muhammadu Buhari at the event, said the future of any nation is so heavily dependent on education and our educators, adding that the government is determined to return teachers, teaching, and the teaching profession to their rightful places.
“To this end, we are fully implementing the professional teaching and teacher qualification framework standards that will invariably impact education outcomes and teacher performance at the preschool, basic, secondary, and tertiary levels.
“We are also developing a verifiable database of teachers in Nigeria, already the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN) has registered 2, 108, 342 teachers and licensed 1,250,000 teachers.
“Our new teacher’s policy is already being implemented at the Federal level and in some States and I urge States that have not, to do so immediately, the gains are already showing,” he said.
Osinbajo said the government will always continue to champion the course of promoting education.
Also speaking, the president of the Nigeria Union of Teachers, Titus Amba, lamented that the education system in Nigeria is in crisis and need urgent redress, adding that the deplorable state of education and poor working conditions of teachers adversely affect education delivery, especially in the public sector.
“At the tertiary level, students of public Universities have been out of school for about seven months due to the protracted industrial dispute between the Federal Government and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).
“The Basic and Secondary Education sub-sectors are faced with serious challenges. These include non-implementation of the N30,000.00 Minimum Wage for teachers in some States, shortage of teachers, poor infrastructure, lack of instructional materials, insecurity in schools, inadequate funding, and poor conditions of service in general.”
“Let me use this occasion to reiterate our call on Governments at both national and sub-national levels to place high premium on Education and accord teachers their pride of place in society. In this regard, we must brace up as a nation to invest adequately in education by raising the budgetary allocations to Education in line with the internationally recommended benchmarks of at least 4% to 6% of GDP and/or 15% to 20% of public expenditure,” Amba said.
On his part, the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu congratulated all winners of the Presidential Teachers and Schools Awards and reiterated the government’s focus on deepening the reforms in the education sector with enhanced funding to reach our goals.
“We call on states and local governments to prioritize the welfare of teachers by placing their salaries on first line charge in their respective budgets. This, we believe will provide a solution to the specter of unpaid salaries,” he said.