Renowned Counselor in Rivers State, Mrs Ngozi Toby, has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to ensure increase in the budgetary allocation for education in his new administration.
In a chat with The Tide, yesterday in Port Harcourt on the need for increase in the budgetary allocation for education in Nigeria, Toby maintained that Buhari should also ensure immediate implementation of the new minimum wage of N30,000 for workers.
He stressed that those were the immediate expectation of Nigerian teachers, including workers.
According to her, “Beyond what we expect, the next level is to look at education holistically; we expect an increase in the budgetary provisions for education.”
As she puts it, “When it is increased, we expect all stakeholders to follow up the budget by way of ensuring it is actually expended on education.”
The Counselor added that teachers’ welfare should also be made priority for the new government, noting that welfare issues were beyond money but include adequate physical infrastructure and conducive environment for learning.
She said owing teachers’ salary or delaying it offended their sensibility and affected their productivity.
“The teacher, as the most critical factor in education, will expect better welfare as such it is not about money. Teachers and workers expect that the environment they find themselves in should be a better one than where they are coming from as a home. For instance, it does not make any sense when a teacher teaches under a tree or under a leaking roof; it will surely affect both the teaching and learning outcome.”
She called on President Buhari, state governors and other stakeholders in the education sector to do everything possible to address the out-of-school children syndrome and ensure universal basic education was actually free and real.
The erudite scholar also lauded the government for areas it had performed well, like the school feeding programme and prayed for its sustainability.