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NIGERIA UNION OF TEACHERS
NATIONAL TEACHERS’ HOUSE
SABON LUGBE-ABUJA.
THE TEACHERS’ SALARY STRUCTURE (TSS): THE JOURNEY SO
FAR.
An insider’s chronological Account on the 25 years
struggle foe better condition of service for
teachers in Nigeria.
PREAMBLE
Contemporary world attention is today focused on
education as an instrument of launching nations into
the world of science and technology and with
consequential hope of human advancement, in terms of
living conditions and development of the
environment.
This is because education in the life of
any nation is the live wire of its industries. It is
the foundation of moral regeneration and revival of
its peoples. Education is the force and bulwark of
any nation’s defence. Therefore, no nation can
afford to pay lip service to the education of its
people. The nation that thinks lightly of education
does so at its own peril.
In this regard, it has been observed
that no nation rises above the level of its
education and no educational system outgrows the
quality and status of its teachers. This must have
informed the decision of the International Labour
Organization (ILO) in co-operation with the UNESCO
(1966) to launch a Charter on ILO/UNESCO
Recommendations Concerning the Status of Teachers,
a document to which the Nigerian Government was a
signatory. The document did not only make a very
strong case for the primacy of importance the
teaching profession should enjoy in the scheme of
things, but also presented a solid advocacy for the
improvement of the conditions of service of teaching
practitioners over and above what obtains in the
nation’s public service grid. Circumstances of this
nature gave the NUT the impetus to look inwards with
a view to adducing facts and information that would
aid the Federal Government of Nigeria in giving
consideration for enhanced conditions of service for
the Nigerian teachers.
DEMAND FOR TEACHERS’ SALARY
STRUCTURE (TSS)
For over two decades, the teachers of Nigeria under
the aegis of the NUT have been consistent in their
request for a separate condition of service and
salary structure for teachers in primary and post
primary schools in the country. This demand had been
backed up with moral persuasion and historical Trade
Union struggles as occasions warranted.
In 1992, a memorandum was submitted by the NUT to
the Federal Minister of Education and was
subsequently reviewed in 1995 and well defended
before the National Salaries and Wages Commission.
The seriousness of the demand for the Teachers’
Salary Structure has taken its toll on the
industrial life of the nation, sometimes leading to
nation-wide industrial action by teachers.
In the aftermath of insistent demand by the NUT, the
Federal Government commissioned an
“Inter-Ministerial Committee on Teachers’ Salary
Structure”, the report of which was submitted to
the Federal Government on 3rd October,
1996. The next cheery information the public heard
of the Teachers’ Salary Structure was made by the
Federal Government in the Federal budget broadcast
of 1998. The then Minister of Education
categorically stated that the Federal Government
would take teachers out of the Public Service Salary
Structure. The implementation of that budget
broadcast remains subsumed in the nation’s archives
till date.
UNIVERSAL BASIC EDUCATION: THE
PLACE OF THE TEACHER
The Federal Government of Nigeria has
accorded due recognition to the global clamour for
Education For All (EFA) as a veritable
instrument of social and political mobilization and
economic development. This is in keeping with the
set objectives of according the citizenry free,
compulsory and qualitative education to all school
age children for the first nine years of schooling,
in order to ensure compliance with the EFA and the
Millennium Development goals.
In this regard, the Government signed into law, the
Compulsory, Free, Universal Basic Education Act,
2004 and other Related matters, which was a positive
step in the right direction, aimed at actualizing
the above stated goals.
As laudable and positive as the Universal Basic
Education programme may be, the huge government
investment in the exercise as well as the overall
objective of the programme would only bear fruit and
be result-oriented if the teachers who constitute
the executors of the process are adequately
motivated and well remunerated. The Union insisted
that there should be a total departure and a
revolutionized policy-thrust on the Wages and
Salaries of teachers in Primary and Post Primary
Schools in Nigeria from the age-long Public Service
Structure which has not given any enhanced image to
the teacher.
It does not require spirited argument to show that
the job expectations and the job analysis of a
teacher are professional in nature, demanding
special consideration and special attention. The
teacher does not have limited working hours, as he
has to cope with many contact and non-contact hours
for which no adequate remuneration can be given.
Lesson preparation, research on topics, the search
for teaching materials, contact teaching periods,
management of unusually and undesirably overcrowded
classrooms, counseling responsibilities, manual
labour, moral instructions, games and sports
organizations, specialized professional
qualifications and other co-curricular activities
which in the main, help to mould the child’s life,
constitute some of the vital professional areas of
duties performed by the teacher. These duties have
mostly, till date, remained unrecognized and
unrewarded but still are central and germane to the
overall development of the child.
Ironically, while teachers in all tertiary
institutions in the country (Universities,
Polytechnics, Monotechnics, Colleges of Education)
enjoy separate salary packages in keeping with their
occupational and professional calling, those in
primary and post-primary schools who constitute the
foundation and critical levels are ignored and left
out. Yet they all possess the same prerequisite
professional qualifications to be registered and
licenced with the Teachers’ Registration Council of
Nigeria (TRCN), an exercise that is currently going
on. This represents an established case of
professional discrimination.
Consequent upon the delay in establishing the TSS
and in view of rising pressure from teachers, the
NUT took fresh step by resuscitating demand for TSS
in 2001.
A reviewed memorandum was submitted by the Nigeria
Union of Teachers (NUT) to the Federal Ministry of
Education requesting for the establishment of a
Teachers’ Salary Structure (TSS) and this received
the attention of the Joint Consultative Committee on
Education (JCCE) Plenary meeting held in Kano in
2002, as a prelude to its consideration by the
National Council on Education (NCE).
A technical Committee of the JCCE was set up to
examine this submission and make appropriate
recommendations to the National Council on Education
(NCE), which is the highest policy-making body of
government on all education matters in the country.
In the course of its assignment, the
committee considered the desirability or otherwise
of the TSS and came up with some findings and
recommendations. Some of its findings included;
(a)
that teachers at tertiary levels had over a
decade enjoyed special salaries and allowances.
(b)
That in the past, special allowances were
given to teachers at the lower levels but such
responsibility allowances had disappeared.
(c)
That lack of motivation and appropriate
incentives had negatively affected the quality of
teaching and learning at the foundation level of the
nation’s education system.
(d)
That the poor performance had implication for
the quality of education of both the lower and
tertiary levels.
(e)
That the justification for the TSS was highly
appreciated and duly recommended.
In order to make a holistic,
comprehensive and acceptable presentation, the
Committee went ahead to consult with the Salaries,
Income and Wages Commission for their input and
sectoral advice on the issue, consequent upon which
it recommended that;
i.
20% increase on the Harmonized Public Service
Salary Scale (HAPSS) for across-the –board
implementation for the teachers in Primary and Post
Primary Schools in the country be approved.
ii.
Some allowances be paid to teachers,
particularly in the rural areas, to enhance
motivation and ensure retention.
The above findings and recommendations
contained in the report of the committee were
submitted to the National Council on Education (NCE)
at its 50th Session held in October, 2003
in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, at which the NCE which
had all the State Honourable Commissioners of
Education, parastatals of the Federal Ministry of
Education and other stakeholders in attendance,
after due consideration and extensive deliberations
unanimously approved the Teachers Salary Structure (TSS).
Subsequently the Honourable Minister of
Education, in his capacity as Chairman of the NCE,
presented the TSS as approved to the Federal
Executive Council (FEC) which referred it to the
National Incomes, Salaries and Wages Commission for
all necessary actions.
It must be mentioned that the approval
of the TSS by the NCE in 2003 was received with
great joy and heightened celebration by all teachers
in Primary and Post Primary Schools in the country.
The delay in actualizing and implementing it has
however remained a topical issue, generating
interest, apprehension and uncontrollable
restiveness among the teachers who now feel a strong
sense of discrimination, and denial.
Following the consideration and approval
given to the recommendations for the TSS for
implementation by the government, the Federal
Ministry of Education referred the issue to the
Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission. The
Commission responded by requesting the Federal
Ministry of Education to provide information on the
cost implication of implementing the proposed TSS by
the Federal Government. Consequent upon this, the
Federal Ministry of Education constituted and
inaugurated a Committee on 8th June,
2006, to work out the cost implication of the TSS,
which has since been completed and submitted to the
Minister of Education for onward delivery to the
Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission.
It is instructive and pertinent to note
that the initial request for a separate Salary for
teachers (TSS) was made through a memo in 1992.
Approval was fully given eleven years later (1992 –
2003), after persistent and continued pressure and
representations by the level headed, dedicated and
committed teachers of Primary and Post Primary
Schools in the country. Three years after the
approval, (2003 – 2006) implementation has arisen as
an issue to be canvassed and renegotiated.
The NUT also further made a presentation to the
National Committee on the Consolidation of
Emoluments in the Public Sector, headed by His
Excellency, Chief Earnest Shonekan, in the hope that
, in the final analysis, the teachers’ demand and
expectations will be given due attention in the
Committee’s expected report to the government. This
will, no doubt, go a long way in dousing the tension
in the school system all over the country on the
issue of T.S.S., as well as motivate the teachers to
higher productivity. The nation’s education system
will be all the better for it.
NUT NATIONAL HEAD OFFICE,
ABUJA
DECEMBER, 2006.
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