The leadership of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) has faulted the planned sack of teachers in Kaduna State.
NANS made this known on Monday in its Armed Forces Remembrance Day message sent to EduCeleb.com and signed by its Publuc Relations Officer, Okereafor Bestman Opeyemi.
The apex students’ body expressed worries that the sack could increase the level of unemployment in Nigeria. It therefore urged the Kaduna State government to review its decision to sack the teachers.
EduCeleb.com recalls that the teachers were sacked for allegedly failing to score 75 per cent pass mark of the primary school level competency test organised by the state government in June 2017.
The Union had thereafter challenged the veracity of claims about the teachers’ performance after Governor Nasir El-Rufai announced in October that it would be sacking the teachers and replacing them with new ones it recently recruited.
The matter had attracted various intervention from various stakeholders including the Kaduna State House of Assembly and the Nigerian Union of Teachers.
Kaduna teachers under aegis of the NUT started a protest on 8th January to press in their demands for a halt on the planned sack about a month after a court ruling stopping the planned sack did not make Mr El-Rufai rescind his decision.
The statement reads in part, “in another dimension, examination is no doubt not a true test of knowledge, NANS is using this opportunity to call on the executive Governor of Kaduna state His Excellency governor Nasir El Rufai to reverse his previous decision of dismissing 22,000 teachers in the state. We consider this decision by his excellency as a mischievous one considering the high level of unemployment in the state and country at large.”
The association also saluted the military and other security agencies for their diligence in ensuring stable security while also challenging government to take good care of those who are pensioners and the families of the dead among them.
It said it “joins the government and good people of Nigeria in remembering our fallen heroes on this year’s armed forces remembrance Day celebration. No doubt the fallen heroes and heroines have given their very best and lifes for the defence and liberation of our beloved country.
“Its however disheartening that the government has not really been doing the needful in the aspect of prompt payment of pensions and entitlements to the families of the deceased, which has brought untold hardship on the family and children of the departed heroes. NANS is passionately calling on the FG to ensure the prompt disbursement of this entitlements are done without delay”
