New salary structure for teachers will improve enrolment, says Provost

The Provost of Federal College of Education (Technical), Akoka, Lagos, Dr Wahab Azeez, has said that the implementation of a new salary structure for teachers by the federal government will improve enrolment in the institution.

Mr Azeez, in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria on Sunday, declared that the initiative was the best thing that could happen in the education subsector in Nigeria.

The federal government announced fresh incentives for teachers during the celebration of 2021 World Teachers’ Day on October 5.

The incentives were payment of stipends for undergraduates of education and automatic employment for graduate teachers.

Mr Azeez said: “The 2021 World Teachers Day will stand out among previous ones because of the announcement of a new salary structure approved by the Federal Government which I am sure has made teachers happy.

“Secondly, more students will begin to go into the teaching profession; no doubt we still have a shortage of teachers, so I expect an increase in the enrolment of students in our NCE programmes.

“Teaching profession is very key, both private primary and secondary schools rely on products and graduates from government colleges of education to handle their students, because of the adequate training they acquired.”

The college provost noted that the NCE programme curriculum was designed for the graduates to teach in primary and junior secondary schools and to fortify them ahead of running a degree in the profession.

He described the curriculum of the NCE programme as rich contents of the syllabus while they are engaged in the number of courses and training within the three years’ duration of their course.

He disclosed that steps were being taken to approach the government to reduce from three years to two years the number of years which NCE graduates would spend to acquire a university degree.

NAN