By Fola James
Oyo State Government, OYSG has distributed over 16,500 promotion letters to primary school teachers across the 33 local government areas of the state. The state governor Seyi Makinde said his administration priotises education and will do everything to promote public education in the state.
As part of the efforts to further bolster pubic education, the state government said it has consistently allocated more than 20 percent of the state’s yearly budget to the sector, in order to promote its free education policy. The governor has insisted that every child must have access to free and qualitative education.
Also recall that the administration, in February this year, recruited 5,000 new teachers and converted 700 non-teaching staff into the teaching cadre in the state Post-Primary Teaching Service Commission, TESCOM. The newly recruited teachers were allocated their appointment letters in August, as the state’s helmsman promised to recruit more.
Some teachers who spoke with the magazine said they are happy that they finally received promotion letters after more than fours years delay.
Speaking at the presentation of the promotion letters to 66 representatives of the teachers, the Executive Chairman, Oyo State Universal Basic Education Board, SUBEB, Dr Nureni Adeniran, said the letters were for the arrears of the 2017- 2020 promotion exercise.
Adeniran said the administration of Governor Makinde will continue to promote the welfare of workers in the Pacesetters state.
According to him, ”the important thing is that the governor of the state, Engr. Seyi Makinde, is so passionate about workers’ welfare. These are arrears of promotion that were supposed to have been given even before we came on board. The governor was magnanimous enough to say look, these people were due for promotion, let us give them.
“The governor is a wonderful person when it comes to workers’ welfare and what belongs to the people of the state. We may not have fulfill everything we want to do but we have certainly left where we were before.
“Whatever the administration of Governor Seyi Makinde says it will do, it will surely do it; it is a talk and do administration and you are seeing that here today.”
The SUBEB chairman said there is a gap in the recruitment of teachers that the administration is trying to fill., adding that “we are working on getting necessary approval for recruitment and it will come to limelight very soon”. He warned the teachers to cooperate with the government in its efforst to revamp the education sector in the state.
Adeniran said “We expect that you will take the full teaching of our students seriously in such a manner that we will see the impact on the learning outcome from the students you are teaching. “We want you to be more committed, punctual and support the government in terms of giving dividends of democracy to people.
“We want a situation whereby the students that we will be turning out from Oyo State public primary schools will be able to compete with their colleagues in any part of the world. This is the challenge we are throwing back at you and we believe by virtue of what the governor has done, you will put in your best.”
