FG Sources for N240billion to Fund Teachers’ Programme

Minister of State for Education, Anthony Anwuka, said the federal government requires about N240 billion yearly to fund the 500,000 teachers programme as part of the strategy to tackle unemployment and bridge the existing gap in shortage of teachers across the country.

At a briefing to inaugurate the committee, the Minister estimated that approximately N240billion naira would be required by government to pay minimum remuneration to the teachers for a year and government has no clue where to source such funds from.

Anwuka said: “Our mandate is to reposition education for the better in our country. The first leg in this very serious dance is the responsibility placed on us to recruit, train and deploy 500,000 teachers NCE and graduate teachers for our basic education sector.

“Initially to kick start the effort relying very much on the 2015 budget speech of Mr. President and the shortage of teachers in public schools across the country promised to recruit, train and deploy 500, 000 unemployed graduates and NCE holders and deploy them to our primary schools.

“It is the feeling that this measure will no doubt help in reducing the number of unemployment in the country and greatly aid in producing teachers and enhancing teachers quality as a result this committee was conceptualized and to be inaugurated formally this morning with the responsibility to examine and recommend the methodology to be adopt in the recruitment training and deployment of such teachers.

“We have a very broad term of reference given to us, it is a tall order and it is the desire of the federal government to actualise the provision of teachers in our basic education sector and by the same token scratch on the unemployment problem in the country by such recruitment.” Anwukah added