The Federal Capital Territory Administration’s secretary of education, Danlami Hayyo, reports that N7 billion has been allocated to cover 25% of the outstanding teacher salary arrears in public primary schools.
On Thursday in Abuja, Mr. Hayyo made this statement while on a familiarisation visit to the FCT Universal Basic Education Board management.
He indicated that the area councils would pay 60% of the outstanding arrears, with the FCTA covering the remaining 40%.
Additionally, he stated that the administration had instructed the local councils and FCT to pay the funds within three months, and that the funds would be taken out of the source and transferred to them.
The education secretary said this was to ensure that the teachers went back to the classrooms.
He affirmed that FCT UBEB was a key agency in the FCTA, and has proven its commitment to the core mandate of ensuring that every child of school age in the Territory was given access to school. He said the board with over 1000 schools still suffers from shortage of teachers.
Mr Hayyo, however, said the administration was studying the challenges with a view to finding a solution to it.
“The essence of this visit is to see how the secretariat can collaborate with the Board towards achieving its mandate. I am thankful to God that the Board has counterpart funding in addition to the BESDA account.
“I promise that the available resources from UBEC and UBEB will be used to address the challenges,” Mr Hayyo said.
He said the secretariat would ensure the take-off of Karshi Model School adding that maximum support would be given to Karshi and Korea model schools to showcase FCT to the world.
Mr Hayyo said when the FCT minister approved the recruitment of teachers, the method of recruitment would be based on area councils.
He claims that since it is impossible for someone from Bwari to apply for a teaching position in Kuje, there won’t be as many complaints about insecurity in some of the schools and a shortage of teachers.