New teacher pay structure will improve enrollment, says provost

The Provost of the Federal College of Education (Technical), Akoka, Lagos, Dr. Wahab Azeez, has said that the implementation of a new salary structure for teachers by the federal government will improve enrollments at the college.

Azeez, in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) yesterday, said the initiative was the best thing that could happen in the education sub-sector in Nigeria.

The federal government announced new incentives for teachers during the celebration of World Teachers’ Day 2021 on October 5.

The incentives were the payment of stipends for undergraduate students and automatic employment for graduate teachers.

Azeez said: “World Teachers’ Day 2021 will stand out from previous ones due to the announcement of a new federally approved salary structure which I’m sure has made teachers happy.

“Secondly, more students will start entering the teaching profession; there is no doubt that we are still short of teachers, so i expect an increase in student enrollment in our NCE programs.

“The teaching profession is very important, private primary and secondary schools rely on the products and graduates of public colleges of education to manage their students, because of the adequate training they have acquired.”

The college provost noted that the curriculum of the NCE program was designed for graduates to teach in primary and secondary schools and to fortify them before graduating in the profession.

He described the curriculum of the NCE program as rich program content as they are engaged in a number of courses and trainings over the three-year duration of their course.

He revealed that steps were being taken to approach the government to reduce the number of years NCE graduates would spend to acquire a university degree from three to two years.