Reports have emerged that due to the difference in their aspirations, some Secondary School teachers in Kwara State have declared their intention to pull out of the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT).
Under the aegis of Academic Staff Union of Secondary Schools (ASUSS), the teachers also hinged their action on the basis of different employers.
The chairman of ASUSS, Mallam Jimoh Daudu, made this revelation at a lecture organised to mark the 2020 World Teachers Day on Monday in Ilorin.
According to Daudu, their membership of the NUT was “a marriage of inconvenience,” hence the need to split, to better agitate and make the demand for their peculiar challenges.
He said:
ASUSS belongs to the state government while NUT belongs to Local Government Councils and Federal Government.
So, it is a marriage of inconvenience.
If there is a problem within the state setting and you have somebody that is leading you, not working with the state, then automatically the state government will turn it down.
But when we have somebody working within us and he is a state worker, whatever he says will be the right thing.
The employers are different.
NUT members are predominantly employed by local government councils and the federal government while states pay teachers of secondary schools.
Since the employers are difference, the aspirations will also differ.
If there is a problem, NUT cannot shoulder our problem.
For instance, some teachers were sent out of their job by the state government during the Bukola Saraki administration for spending eight years on a step.
But this did not affect teachers in primary schools because they were never employed by the state.
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The ASUSS leader said that with their struggle, the state government was forced to include secondary school teacher on the list of those who could proceed to Grade Level 17 before retirement.
These teachers, he said retired on Grade Level 15 before the intervention of ASUSS.
That is why we say we are to be on a parallel line with them.
Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) was with NUT before they left, College of Education Academic Staff Union (COEASU) was with them before they left them.
The same thing was the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnic (ASUP).
It is the right time for us to leave also.
