By Son Tertsea, Abuja

The vacancy policy for the promotion of teachers has not gone down well with the Nigeria Union of Teachers, Federal Capital Territory Wing, on Monday, protesting against it.

Consequently, the union officials and members stormed the Headquarters of the National Open University, Abuja, venue of the ongoing 2025 promotion examinations for 13,000 FCT Administration workers, to register their anger and to press home their demands.

Chairman of the union, Mr Abdullahi Shafa who led the protest, appealed to the Chairman of the FCT Civil Service Commission, Mr Emeka Ezeh, to remove the vacancy condition for promotion.

Shafa argued that teachers were not pool staff and as such, deserve merit not vacancy as a condition for promotion.

According to him, vacancy as a condition for promotion will stagnate career progression for teachers in the FCT.

“The application of vacancy-based promotion for teachers is unjust and detrimental to the teaching profession.

“Teachers should be promoted based on merit and successful performance in promotion examinations rather than the availability of vacancies.

“We deserve special consideration because of the unique nature of our work and the difficult conditions under which many of us serve.

“Therefore, teachers should not be subjected to a vacancy system, as they are deployed across schools in urban and rural communities, where many are facing security challenges, including banditry and kidnapping.”

He pointed out that promotion was a key motivation for teachers and warned that stagnating teachers’ career progression would further discourage them and undermine the education sector.

Shafa said that teachers remained among the least and under paid public servants in the country, despite the critical role they played in nation building.

According to him, some teachers in the country still earn between N50,000 and N60,000 as a monthly salary, in contrast to what their counterparts receive in some developed countries.

“How do you survive with such a meagre amount if you are living in the capital city?

“Therefore, if a teacher sits for a promotion examination and passes the examination, he or she should be promoted.”

He urged Ezeh to engage with the union rather than dismissing its concerns, saying “dialogue is necessary to resolving any dispute” explaining that prolonged delays in resolving the promotion issue had forced teachers to leave their classrooms to participate in protests, with adverse consequences for pupils.

“Our members are not in the classrooms today because they are demanding what they believe is their legitimate right but those who suffer most are the children,” he said.

Responding to allegations that the protests might be politically motivated, Shafa insisted that the agitation was solely aimed at protecting the welfare and career progression of teachers.

Similarly, the Secretary of the union, Mrs Margaret Jethro, stressed that teachers should not be subjected to the same promotion policy with civil servants and advocated the establishment of a Teachers Service Commission in FCT.

“You cannot use a law being used for a core civil servant who needs office accommodation and an official car for promotion of teachers.

“Teachers only need their classrooms as such, the vacancy policy will not work for teachers,” he said.

Jethro said that in 2023, 401 deputy directors passed the promotion examination but only 20 were promoted.

She reiterated the union’s demand that all the teachers that passed the promotion examination in 2023 and 2024 must be promoted before the union would allow the 2025 examination for teachers.

“The benchmark for promotion was set by the authorities and qualified teachers should not be denied promotion after meeting the requirements,” she said.

Responding, Ezeh explained that promotion for FCT workers, including teachers, was clearly spelt out in the guidelines, adding that the union’s demand appears mischievous.

“The system of government is guided by rules, and the commission is only implementing the guidelines for promotion,” he said.

Ezeh said that no one could be promoted without a vacancy because it had financial and establishment implications.

By Isa Abdul, Abuja

The Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria (ASCSN) has raised the alarm over renewed moves to privatise Federal Government Colleges, popularly known as Unity Schools, warning that such a policy would make quality secondary education inaccessible to millions of Nigerian children and undermine one of Nigeria’s enduring symbols of national integration.

The union’s reaction is based on reports that the Federal Government had approved the concessioning of King’s College, Lagos, to its Old Boys’ Association under a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement.

The union released a statement in Abuja, jointly signed by its National President, Shehu Mohammed, and Secretary-General, Joshua Apebo, warning that concessioning the college could set a dangerous precedent that might eventually lead to the transfer of the remaining 119 Unity Schools into private hands for the wrong reasons.

The statement called on Nigerians to reject any attempt to privatise the schools, insisting that they remain a national asset that should be preserved for future generations.

ASCSN traced the Unity School system to 1966 when Nigeria’s first Prime Minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, initiated the idea to serve as model secondary schools where children from different ethnic, religious, social and economic backgrounds could study together and foster national unity.

The union stressed that the first three Unity Colleges were established in Okposi (later relocated to Enugu) for the former Eastern Region, Warri for the Western Region, and Sokoto for the Northern Region.

The union said there are now 120 Federal Government Colleges across the country, many of which remain among Nigeria’s most sought-after secondary schools because of the quality of education they provide.

The ASCSN chronicled the attempts to phase out the schools, alleging that former Head of State and later President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, first advanced the idea in 1978 that the Federal Government should not operate secondary schools.

According to the union, the policy resurfaced during Obasanjo’s civilian administration beginning in 1999, including efforts to dismantle the junior secondary sections of the Unity Schools as part of a broader plan to phase out the system.

It added that in July 2010 the then-President Goodluck Jonathan directed the restoration of the junior secondary sections, thereby preserving the Unity School system.

The ASCSN argued that privatising the schools would also contradict Section 18 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), which outlines the government’s responsibility to provide free and universal education at various levels.

Grounding its argument in global antecedents, the union cited the United States which operates between 20,000 and 24,000 publicly funded secondary schools, the United Kingdom has about 4,200 publicly funded secondary schools, while Germany runs approximately 8,900 state-owned schools.

“These schools are publicly funded and managed. Since these are capitalist societies, we do not know where Nigerian politicians got the idea that government cannot run secondary schools,” the union stated.

It maintained that Old Boys’ Associations and private investors interested in operating secondary schools should establish their own institutions instead of seeking control of Unity Schools, which are the collective heritage of all Nigerians.

The ASCSN further warned that handing the schools over to private entrepreneurs could ultimately lead to the conversion of school facilities and their vast land holdings into hotels, shopping malls and other commercial ventures driven by profit.

The union called on the Federal Government to abandon any plan to privatise or concession Unity Schools and instead preserve and strengthen them as a lasting national legacy established by Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa and sustained by successive administrations

By Nick Ibe, Abuja

The Federal Government is set to drop the policy separating Junior Secondary Schools (JSS) from Senior Secondary Schools (SSS). The policy shift is being considered after data showed more than 20 million pupils dropped out before reaching the senior secondary level.

Announcing this Tuesday in Abuja was the Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, during the inauguration of the UBEC Ministerial Implementation and Monitoring Committee.

Alausa pointed out that the “disarticulation policy,” which required JSS and SSS to operate separately with different principals and facilities, has not met expected objectives. He justified the review saying:

“We have 20 million dropouts from primary school to JSS. Where are those students? We also found we have 80,000 public primary schools, and only about 15,000 junior secondary schools. That’s a one to eight ratio.”

The minister said the imbalance has caused overcrowding in JSS facilities and left many senior secondary schools underutilised. He made reference to Kaduna and other northern states as examples.

“This disarticulation policy has failed. We will phase it out. We can’t be creating positions because we want to create a director level for people while we harm our education system. It’s about doing what is best for every Nigerian child.”

He added that the proposal to abolish the policy will be tabled at the next meeting of the National Council on Education.

The policy shift is aimed at expanding access and improving learning outcomes, Alausa said. He acknowledged past failures in addressing transition rates but stated: “This government will not fail. We are fixing it.”

At the same event, Alausa inaugurated a committee chaired by Prof. Rashid Aderinoye to oversee UBEC-funded Smart Schools, Bilingual Schools and Alternative Schools.

The committee is mandated to ensure the projects are completed, handed over to states and opened for learning.

UBEC has invested in hundreds of such schools nationwide.

The minister said many remain unfinished or have not admitted learners, describing it as a waste of public resources.