NUT strike: CSOs Declare Black Mondays

The Coalition of Civil Society Organisations in Kogi State has?declared every Monday beginning from  August 9, as “Black Monday’’, to protest the lingering primary school teachers’ strike.

This is contained in a communiqué jointly signed by Mr Paul Agada and Mr Victor Adejoh of Civil Society Action Coalition for Education for All (CSACEFA) and Participation Initiative for Behavioural Change in Development (PIBCID), respectively and made available to The Tide correspondent.

The communiqué was issued at the end of a one-day round-table forum on the issues of “Condition of Service for Teachers and Educational System’’.

The roundtable was organised by the PIBCID supported by ActionAid in collaboration with CSACEFA and attended by 17?organisations.

It described the lingering teachers’ strike and what they saw as the sordid state of education in Kogi State.

It called on teachers, parents, students, pupils and all citizens to dress in black clothes every Monday as a non-violent protest to draw government and other stakeholders’ attention to?problems in the education sector.

The coalition also criticised the “commercialisation” of the ongoing teachers’ recruitment exercise by the Kogi State Teaching Service Commission (TSC) in which each applicant was being charged N3,400.

The coalition said no fewer than 15,000 unemployed graduates had so far applied for the 500 slots advertised.

The coalition said in pursuit of its commercial intentions, the commission had shortlisted all, including unqualified candidates who paid the N3,400 for the examination.

The coalition also queried the rationale behind the call on National Examination Council (NECO) to conduct the recruitment examination instead of the National Teachers’ Institute (NTI) or even the Ministry of Education.

“We recommend that the NTI rather than NECO has the statutory ground to train teachers and to set examinations for graduates seeking employment as teachers,’’ it stated.

It also appealed to the state government to consider recalling qualified and experienced teachers erroneously retrenched in the 2009 Sally Tibot Staff Audit before fresh recruitment of teachers.

The Tide

recalled that the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) in May declared a nationwide strike in 18 states over many issues, including the non-implementation of minimum wage structure for primary schools teachers.

While 17 other states called off the strike, it continued in Kogi because the teachers claimed that the government was yet to meet their demands.