Teachers in the Special School for Handicapped Children in Borikiri, Port Harcourt, have sent a Save Our Soul (SOS) message to the Rivers State Government appealing to be paid teaching allowances like their counterparts in other schools.
Sending the SOS in an exclusive interview with The Tide, Friday, Principal of the Senior Secondary School of the institution, Mr. Fedrick Igbanibo Amachree, said the call was necessitated by the fact that  the school needs to be attended to in various areas for it to achieve the reason it was set up.
Mr Amachree, who stated this as part of the challenges bedeviling the school, noted that teachers in the school were the only ones in the country that are deprived of their special allowances.
“The other challenge that is also major to us is the fact that the staff of my school are the only special educators. As far as I know, throughout the county it is only in Rivers State that the government don’t pay the teachers special allowances,” he said.
He explained that since the inception of the school in 1985, “the government has not paid any special allowance to the teachers.”
This, according to the principal, is different from how their colleagues in other states are treated.
“In other states, special educators are paid special teachers allowances in varying percentages decided by the state,” he explained.
When contacted, chairman of the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT), Rivers Wing, Comrade Nkpogone Dumnaatah Lucky said the union had never been aware that educators in the school were not paid their due.
“For the first time I am getting to know that those in the special school have their own special salary structure.
“They have never told this office, complaining that they have not been paid on such scale that they are supposed to be paid,” he said.
While acknowledging that special educators also fall under the union of teachers, the NUT chairman urged the affected teachers to make their plight official.
“I will wish that the school authority can approach the union and complain. We can carefully present the matter to the Government, and liaise with government on how to see to their plight, recognising that they have enormous tasks to do in terms of handling the physically challenged pupils and students,” the NUT boss said.