NUT Wants FG To Overhaul Unity Schools

National Union of Teachers, Coordinator of Federal Unity Schools, Mr Alex Okonta, on Tuesday in Abuja called on government to overhaul the unity schools system in the country.

Okonta, who made the call in an interview with newsmen in Abuja, lamented the poor state of the unity schools.

He said that there was the need to overhaul the unity schools system, particularly the sports department.

“Even the so called STEP-B project had a lot of money pumped into it, it is a kind of fund given to schools, the essence is to motivate teachers and students in learning of sciences.

“As far as I am concerned, I cannot see the effect of that, what they did was just to buy buses which actually have no bearing in motivating students and teachers in teaching.

Okonta said that he expected that the money should have been used to train teachers in science, organise workshops and seminars so as to enable them to be skillful in teaching the subject but that was not done.

He said that the money should also have been used to take students to areas where they would see things that would motivate them to be interested in learning the sciences, and mathematics.

He added that the issue of admission was currently a problem in unity schools in the country.

Okonta said the aim of unity schools was to mobilise people from different places in order to bring unity among Nigerians.

“But, I don’t see anything different between the unity schools and the neighbouring schools because the admission is also from the same environment contrary to what it was set up to achieve.

“Before government was thinking of scrapping unity schools because the aim of establishing these schools was not being met,” he said.

He said that years back unity schools would have students moved from Sokoto to Enugu, and others from Lagos to Sokoto.

“This was actually doing the work of unifying the country, but nowadays it is not so and this area needs to be addressed so that unity schools should actually be a unity school.

“If a parent does not want a child to go to Sokoto or from Enugu to the North then we should forget about unity schools.

“So now that admission is ongoing it is very important that we go back to the ideas of the founding fathers, because there were good ideas,” he said.

Okonta also called for the implementation of the teachers’ salary structure in unity schools, adding that the structure was approved since 2008.

He said that the Federal Government should pay the back log of arrears of promotions, and that “some of us have gotten three promotions but have not been paid”.

He also called on government to make more efforts in fighting examination malpractice, which he said now existed in the schools. .

He further advised the 97-man committee on NEEDS Assessment on the 104 unity schools recently inaugurated by Federal Government to be transparent in their findings.