As states across Nigeria commence another academic session, the Academic Staff Union of Secondary Schools( ASUSS) , has warned that delay in the implementation of the N30,000 new national minimum wage would automatically affect the Morales of teachers. Addressing newsmen in Ado-Ekiti yesterday , the National President of the Union, Mr. Samuel Omaji, said improved wage, working tools and conducive teaching – learning environment, were fundamental impetuses that could make teachers give the best in academic environment. ASUSS also decried the poor infrastructure, inadequate public schools and lack of basic teaching aids, including modern laboratories in most of the Secondary Schools across the country.”
The foot dragging of government on the minimum wage issue and poor attention to Secondary Schools generally appears to us, a calculated attempt to take education off the reach of the common man, as the private schools continue to soar in the face of lackadaisical government attitude to funding public schools.” Omaji said the continued negotiations and breach of terms of new minimum wage after it had become law was seen by Secondary Schools teachers as ploy by the federal government to deliberately frustrate the implementation of the new wage. “It’s inexplicable that after over two years of agitation by the labour movement, culminating in eventual negotiation and signing into law of the bill, the federal government has continued to deploy various tactics, including divide and rule to negate the implementation of a basic surviving wage, notwithstanding that Nigeria workers have right to a living wage and not a mere minimum wage,” they lamented.
