ADESINA Adedoyin, Chairman, Nigeria Union of Teachers, NUT, Lagos State Wing, has urged Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu, the Lagos State Governor-elect, to give priority to education during his administration.

Adedoyin gave the advice in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Friday in Lagos.

He said that the budgetary allocation to education should be reviewed between 15 and 20 per cent, as recommended by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).

He listed other areas of concern to include: employment of more teachers, improved welfare, funding and an enabling environment for teaching and learning.

According to him, education should be properly funded if we want to get results.

“On behalf of the Lagos State teachers and the entire NUT family, I want to congratulate the Governor-elect, Mr Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu for the feat he has recorded during the March 9 election.

“I wish him success in all his endeavours.

“I want to urge that priority should be given to education. No nation can develop above the level of its education,’’ Adedoyin said.

The NUT chairman said the union had already set agenda that would improve on teaching and learning, saying that would equally be an advantage to the incoming government in terms of its contributions to the sector.

“We have an agenda; we have a goal and we have objectives that we have set for ourselves, pre-elections, during the campaign, as regards the welfare of teachers and workers in public sector in general.

“First thing first. I want the governor-elect to address the issue of dearth of manpower in our schools.

“For our education to grow properly, the incoming governor must increase the number of manpower in the teaching sector, most especially primary and secondary schools, where we don’t have enough teachers in service.

“The second is providing continual enabling environment for education to thrive in Lagos, so that those infrastructure developments his predecessor have started, he will continue to lay more emphasis on it and enhance it.

According to him, the welfare of our members should be enhanced and various allowances that can boost the morale of teachers to encourage teaching as a profession.

He also advised Sanwo-Olu to enhance the riverine allowance, sports allowance, science allowance, duty post allowance and many more.

“Those are the things that motivate and encourage our members to put more efforts, in spite of the fact that we are putting our efforts.

“When you look at the results of our students in external examinations, they are increasing on yearly basis. We need to be motivated so that we can maintain the tempo,’’ he said.

The NUT chairman urged the incoming government to resuscitate the World Bank Eko Project, which was done to improve performance in schools during Gov. Babatunde Fashola’s administration.

According to him, the Eko Project helped students in secondary schools a lot and we want it to be extended to primary schools because it is the base upon which we build.

“We want the incoming government to look at all these things,” he said.

Adedoyin also urged the incoming governor to invest in provision of textbooks for students. (NAN)

– Mar. 15, 2019 @ 13:35 GMT |