Primary school teachers in Bayelsa cry out over non-payment of 4 months salary arrears

Teachers in public schools under the auspices of the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) in Bayelsa on Friday appealed to Gov. Seriake Dickson to facilitate the payment of their outstanding salary arrears. They made the appeal in a seven-point communique signed jointly by Mr John Toinpre Kala-Ama, the state’s NUT Chairman, Mr Johnson Hector, Principal Secretary, and Akanyo Timi, Publicity Secretary. The teachers urged Dickson to prevail on local government council authorities to pay the backlog of four months salaries owed primary school teachers in the state. The state government , they said, should assume its constitutional collaborative responsibility of augmenting the funding and management of the primary school system through the Universal Basic Education Programme. The teachers also appealed to the state and local governments to quickly address the issues of payment of imprest to headmasters and equitable distribution of instructional materials for functional academic work. Other problems, they stated, included acute shortage of teachers as well as non-implementation of promotion and annual increment for primary school teachers among others. They demanded that the NUT be also represented in the State Education Committee as directed by the government. The teachers also threatened to commence their suspended strike if their demands were not met. It would be recalled that the 2016/2017 academic session was delayed for one month following a strike by the NUT over outstanding salaries. The teachers shifted ground and suspended the strike following pledges by the government to prioritise payment of teachers’ salaries. The communique was issued following an emergency meeting of the state wing of the union at the Teachers House in Yenagoa.