Why Teachers Must Earn Salaries Higher Than ...

Nigeria  is working on a proposal to ensure that teachers are paid salaries higher than other workers in Nigeria so as to attract the best to the teaching profession.

Malam Adamu Adamu, Minister of Education,  who gave this hint on Thursday, while inaugurating the Governing Councils of 21 Federal Colleges of Education, said teaching profession has ceased to be “all-comers affairs”.

The minister stresses  that teachers in Nigeria across all levels must register with the Teachers’ Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN) before the end of this year or risk being sent out of the system.

The Minister of State for Education, Professor Anthony Anwukah, disclosed that government has understudied Malaysia and came to realisation that the country got it right by first taking a critical look at teaching and teacher education.

According to him,  Malaysia in the quest for greatness had brought down its education sector and reorganised it for effective development of human resource in order to get to where the country is today.

Professor Anthony Anwukah said to start with, teachers in Malaysia were paid higher than other workers and that the Federal government felt it was expedient to extrapolate that for implementation in Nigeria.

The Minister recalled that Malaysians came to buy palm seedlings from Nigeria at the rate of N10 each, some years ago and that now the economy of Malaysia is completely dependent on palm trees, palm fruits and palm oil, saying in terms of infrastructure, Malaysia is a nice place to be.

“What did they do? They brought the whole system down and ask what you want us to do in education. Their planning was geared towards the development of human resources, he said.

 In Malaysia, top percent of those who scored the highest in their equivalent of JAMB compete to be teachers.

“If you are a teacher in Malaysia, you are ranked than any other worker in the country. This is why you will find people with PhDs teaching in primary schools. Teachers are paid higher than any other person in Malaysia and we have made that recommendation and we are going to do that in Nigeria,” he said.
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