Still on Teachers’ Strike and Our Children

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Teachers' Strike and Our Children
From:THISDAY
At last, primary and secondary teachers in the country, under the aegis of the Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT), have embarked on an indefinite full-scale strike to compel the Federal Government to release a circular agreeing to the implementation of the Teachers' Salary Scale (TSS). The teachers had on June 11 embarked on a three-day warning strike after giving a 21-day ultimatum to the government to accede to their demand. Again on June 17 the teachers issued the government with a 7-day ultimatum to accede to their demand, but the government simply refused to budge. This deadlock is reminiscent of the deadlock between the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and the Federal Government.
The government says it cannot implement a uniform wage structure for teachers across the country because of its financial and constitutional implications. On its own part, the NUT has not only refused to back down on its insistence that the government must issue the approval circular containing information creating the TSS as a distinct and substantive pay package and allowances for all grades of primary and secondary school teachers, but also vowed to picket private schools and federal government schools refusing to join the strike.
Another grouse of the teachers is that the government has reneged on its 2003 agreement with them to implement the TSS.
In tackling this crisis, recourse must be made to the Constitution, the grundnorm of the land. Under our Constitution, education is in the concurrent list. The implication of this is that both the Federal and State governments can own schools and set up different benchmarks for running them as well as paying teachers' salaries. Consequent upon this and in the spirit of federalism, the National Council on Education and the Federal Executive Council might set a benchmark of TSS, but such a benchmark is subject to the approval of the different State Executive Councils. The Federal government has no right to impose TSS on States or prevent States wanting to increase salaries of their teachers from doing so.
That said, however, we must observe that the government has developed a certain proclivity for reneging on agreements over the years as shown in the lingering feuds involving the government and ASSU, medical doctors and others. This has been the source of many industrial conflicts and strikes in Nigeria. The government should respect its promises and agreements with second parties. To renege on such  agreements smacks off insincerity and fraud.
The government must avoid that will aggravate the rift with teachers. It should not give the impression that it is always treating teachers with contempt. Education is the bedrock of all the development processes of a country. Primary and secondary education is the foundation of all learning. Primary school teachers, in particular, are the core teachers moulding the character of our children in their formative stage in life. Therefore we cannot afford to look down on them. Teaching remains a venerable profession. In a country like Singapore teachers are the elites. In the past, teachers were respected and revered in Nigeria. But unfortunately the reverse is the case today. They are one of the least workers.
Education is one of the 7-point Agenda of the Yar' Adua government. Therefore the Federal and the State governments should lift up the spirits of teachers by paying them living wages.