The Wednesday 18 September, 2024 edition of the Nigerian Army Resource Centre (NARC) Weekly Subject Experts’ Presentation was held at Hall B TY Buratai Block, Abuja. There was one presentation made by the Subject Experts on Southern Africa.
The presentation was made by Col OR Akerele (Rtd) subject experts on Southern Africa who centered his presentation on how Western Cape Teachers on a Planned Strike and Job Cuts are Looming. Strikes and protests remain a legal way to express and pass grievances to constituted authorities by trade unions in various organizations. It is also a way of resolving crises and disagreements between workers union and management, often times based on remuneration and conditions of work, health services and welfare generally and to this extent, on 13 Sep, 2024, sabc news reported that the teachers in the Western Cape, South Africa has embarked on a planned strike to demand better conditions of service and improved remuneration and welfare, including a more conducive learning environment for the children.
However, in a swift reaction, the Western Cape Education Minister David Maynier responded that the ministry will take drastic actions to cover their massive shortfalls but will not compromise to pay outstanding bills which include salaries of teachers. He said “The only way we could close the gap would be to cut critical support to schools in poorer communities, including schools feeding, learner transport and payment to schools with which they pay daily expenses”.
Furthermore, he stated that “we have to cut down on our non-personnel spending to become a department that only transfer salaries and does not offer any support to teachers, learners and schools”. He thereafter informed teachers through the Union that the Ministry of Education had already made R2.5 million in budget cuts to non-personnel spending including dramatic cuts to the governments’ “Back on Track Programme” budget. The “Back on Track” programme is vital in reversing the learning loses caused by Covid-19 pandemic, as regular drugs on its own has not been enough to improve learning and the pandemic poorly affected teachers in poor communities. Removing this support would greatly affect the learners.
In his analysis and lessons for Nigeria, Col OR Akerele (Rtd) noted that, the importance of education to a nation cannot be over emphasized, in most parts of the world education is regarded as a fundamental human right. Education is one of the basic criteria to measure the growth and development of any nation. Sadly the level, quality and standard of education in Nigeria has witnessed a geometric drop in the past two decades and this unfortunate trend has made Nigeria the leading country of origin of students from Africa migrating to other parts of the world in search of quality education. This fall in standard has been attributed to a number of factors such as Poor Funding, unavailability of qualified teachers, lack of continuous training for teachers, Low University Admission Capacity, Academic Fraud, Corruption And Indiscipline, Poor Standard Of Living And Bad Governance, Politicization Education.
However, Nigeria could learn from this South African Teachers Strike and the Ministers’ prompt actions, some of which are: The need for prompt physical media response by the Ministry of Education through the Minister, Need for the Education Ministry to regularly update teachers and the Teachers Union of plans and programmes of the Ministry citing achievements and future plans, Need for cooperation and constant liaison between the Ministry of Education and the Teacher’s Union, Need to justify requests for improved budgeting and financing of education programmes through the Teacher’s Unions requests and strike actions, Need for the federal government to promptly consider and access to the request of the minister to improve teachers working conditions and learner’s quality of education, Need for continuous government interventions in preparing learner’s for their final matriculation examinations to ensure good results, Need to maintain the confidence of the Teachers Union in the Ministry of Education and vice – versa, ensuring the work as partners in progress.
He recommended that, the Federal Government of Nigeria should expedite actions on all agreements reached with Teachers Unions and the Federal and State Governments should increase budgetary allocations to schools, colleges and universities to improve infrastructure, remuneration of teachers and conditions of service for teachers.
