By Ken Chiwendu
The House of Representatives has reiterated its commitment to ensure the welfare of teachers in tertiary institutions.
As part of measures towards ensuring lecturers welfare and reducing the brain drain syndrome, the house is taken steps to remove polytechnics and colleges of education are removed from the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System ( IPPIS).
The Speaker,Dr. Abbas Tajudeen, made this known on Thursday in Zaria at the 3rd International conference of the Gender Policy Unit, Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) Zaria.
Abbas who was represented by Dr. Abubakar Fulata, House Committee Chairman on Education, said the House would pursue the interest of the academia and one of those issues in contention was the issue of IPPIS.
He said, IPPIS is anti-intellectual, anti-education and completely ignorant of the issues involved.
“It is our determination to ensure that universities, polytechnics and colleges of education are removed from IPPIS.
“It is also our determination to make sure that education receives a substantial portion in the national budget at least to meet up with the United Nations requirement of 26 per cent of the National budget,’’ The Speaker said
The Speaker said that the system had downgraded education in the country to a level where teachers` survival was put at risk.
He recalled a recent engagement with the vice-chancellors across the country, where the lawmakers were made to understand that a professor’s take-home after deduction was less than N450, 000 describing such a salary as embarrassing to the education sector.
Abbas said fighting poverty, gender inequality and insecurity was not merely a moral imperative but a fundamental necessity for the progress and prosperity of the nation.
Speaking earlier, the Vice Chancellor of ABU,Prof. Kabiru Bala, said the conference was another step towards realising the ABU’s aspiration of becoming a world-class academic and research institution.
Represented by Prof. Ahmed Doko, the Deputy Vice-Chancellor Administration,Bala said the conference provides an opportunity for the professionals in the academia, security, and other stakeholders to engage in critical discourse on implications of insecurity to the SDG goals.
