Calabar – Mr Eyo Itam, Chairman, Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT), Cross River chapter, has called for the reintroduction of special allowance for secondary school teachers in the rural areas of the state.
Itam made the call on Sunday in Calabar during an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).
He said that teachers in the rural areas needed extra motivation in order to remain committed to their duties.
Itam said the measure could also contribute toward improving the standard of education in the state.
He recalled that then Mr Donald Duke-led administration paid teachers special allowance ranging from N5000 to N10, 000 monthly, to motivate them.
“This caused the movement of many teachers from urban centres to the rural areas.
“But now that the succeeding administrations have stopped the incentives, teachers in the rural areas are no more committed to their duties.
“Many of them now demand to come back to town because there is nothing special to enjoy any more.
“There are no subventions for teachers. The rural allowances have been stopped and nothing motivates teachers any longer; even payment of salaries is becoming something else”, he said.
Itam advised the present administration in the state to reintroduce the special welfare package in order to lay a solid foundation for education in the rural areas,” he said.
He said that the initiative helped to tremendously improve the quality of education in the grassroots.
“That was when Cross River came third in the May/June West African School Certificate Examinations (WASCE)”, he told NAN.
Itam described the introduction of compulsory prep for secondary teachers in the state as counter-productive
“It is counter-productive because most of the children are from poor homes and the teachers also get exhausted at the end of the day, ‘’ he said.
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He advised the government to reverse the policy and called for stakeholders’ contributions on the matter, adding that teachers were not consulted before the policy was intoduced.
“For you to make a policy that involves the people, the people themselves must be involved,” he said. (NAN)