TEACHERS’ SALARY MUST REFLECT THEIR SACRIFICE TO NATION BUILDING – HAKEEM LAWAL

As Teachers all over the world marked the World Teachers Day yesterday, the gubernatiorial candidate of the Social Democratic Party, SDP in Kwara State, Alhaji Hakeem Oladimeji Lawal has saluted the sacrifice and contirubution to Nigerian teachers to nation’s building.

Established in 1994, The World Teachers’ Day, also known as International Teachers Day, is an international day held annually on October 5.

It commemorates the signing of the 1966 UNESCO/ILO Recommendation concerning the Status of Teachers, which is a standard-setting instrument that addresses the status and situations of teachers around the world.

In his message on the year’s celebration in Ilorin on Wednesday, Lawal, who is a son of a disciplinarian teacher mother, said he understood and can relate to “the woes, pains, cries and sacrifices of the Nigerian teachers, particularly in Kwara state, where my mum, Hajia Nusirat Lawal, served till she retired.”

He added that “even whilst her husband was the Military Governor of Ogun state (1987 -1990), she, out of passion for the teaching profession, remained in service and continued to mould the students, scores of which are leading lights in their various fields of endeavor today.”

The 2003 SDP Guber hopeful in Kwara lamented what he called the “sad reality that successive governments have refused to accord the teaching profession its due recognition, thereby strategically hedged majority of the teachers from climbing societal ladder of sustainable socio-economic stability.”

Acording to him, he is of “strong conviction that teachers must be returned to their rightful positions. Their salaries, allowances, promotions, and other entitlements must reflect their sacrifices.”