The Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) has sympathised with the private school teachers, following the impacts of Covid-19 pandemic.
While disclosing this on Wednesday July 8, 2020, the National Treasurer of the Union, Mr Segun Raheem, stated that the Covid-19 pandemic had affected the economic viability of this category of teachers.
Raheem added that many of these teachers had not been paid since the closure of schools across the country.
“The NUT is making efforts to unionise them, though the efforts had failed in the past, the NUT would not relent,” Raheem said.
“The pandemic has really affected so many people, particularly when we talk of teachers in the private sector. So many of them have not received salaries since March.
“We as a union are working on unionising them. We have in the past but there were threats from proprietors. We will not renege. We will keep on making sure that our welfare is guaranteed,” he stated.
“As a matter of fact, they are our colleagues; because we own the same licence to teach. If they don’t have opportunity in the public schools they should be comfortable where they are in private schools,” he added.
Raheem therefore urged the government to withdraw any plan to open schools at this critical period. He advised that the pandemic must be managed before before asking schools to resume.
He stressed that many schools lack the requisite facilities to meet the laid-down protocols for schools resumption.
“Majority of our schools do not even have running water. Now, if you say infrared will be used to check temperature, who holds on to the infrared? Is it the teachers that are not enough in the classrooms?” he concluded.
