Don Advocates Better Remuneration For Teachers To Boost Morale

A Professor of Industrial and Applied Chemistry at the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta FUNAAB in Ogun State, Akinola Akinlabi has renewed the call for improved remuneration for teachers across the country, in order to boost their morale and raise the standard of discipline, especially in secondary schools.

He also called for the urgent implementation of relevant sections of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) recommendation, which stipulates that not less than 26% of a country’s annual budget should be channeled to education.

The don who was delivering the university's 69th inaugural lecture, spoke against the backdrop of increasing cases of violence and bullying being reported in some secondary schools across the country in the past few days.

He stressed the need to urgently curb the menace of social vices ravaging the country before it escalates. 

Prof. Akinlabi speaking  on the topic, "Natural Rubber: Adding Value for Life Sustenance and Economic Development", however, commended the government for addressing some of the problems faced by teachers through various intervention programmes.

He has called for the training and retraining of science teachers in order to arrest the intimidation of students by sciences.

According to him, "a key issue in science development is science teachers. Fortunately science teachers are no longer scarce as they used to be about two decades ago but how capable and skilled are these science teachers to arrest the intimidation of students by the sciences" 

“Teachers must however be trained, retrained and encouraged to improve on themselves. They must also be properly remunerated and granted incentives in order to encourage them to do more"he added

The don bemoaned some major problems plaguing science development and the technological capability of Nigerians to effectively harness the abundant natural resources for social economic development, stating that a key issue in science development is the availability of teachers.