Niger teachers without promotion for 7 years

… It is a lie – SUBEB boss

From Yakubu Mustapha, Minna

Primary school teachers in Niger state have never had it so bad, as for the past 7 years they say they have had no promotion according to their grade levels, or steps, even as the Primary School Management Board remained silence over the issue, resulting in their massive exodus from the state.

Investigation revealed that since 2006, when teachers in the state had their last promotions, even evaluation form has never been given to them in order to effect any promotion, leaving them to wallow in poverty without concern from the government that they served.

It was reliably ascertained that their salary emoluments have continued to diminish instead of improving in the last seven years since Dr. Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu came into power in 2007.

One of the primary school teachers who spoke to our reporter, but preferred anonymity, said, “To God, my last promotion was in 2006; even my step has stagnated since then while other staff of the local government enjoyed their steady promotion; I have been making efforts to leave; many of my colleagues have left the unrecognized and unappreciated profession for greener pastures, most especially in Niger state”.

However, the Niger SUBEB Chairman, Alhaji Hassan Uba Kuta denied the allegations, saying that the delay in promotion was as a result of various verification exercise embarked on by the state government to ascertain the authentic number of teachers in the state even as, according to him, it has carried out promotion three times by the present administration.

“We realized a lot of ghost teachers during and after various verification exercise were conducted by the state government, including promotion of ghost teachers in the past, we need to fish them out to know who are the real teachers.”

Uba stressed that promotion were not automatic, stating that it is earned after interview and examinations and noted that the present government of Dr. Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu inherited a backlog of 2005 and 2006 which was cleared in 2008 as that of 2007-9 were cleared that the board was left with 2010 to date from levels 13 -16 while levels 13 down to 10 scheduled for June.

He assured that all other levels due for promotion would be a thing of the past by the end of June this year as it will be concluded. Maintained that “for anybody to say that for the past 7 years primary teachers were not promoted in Niger state is lying; we have done three promotions” he stated.