The Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT) in Delta said that its members would continue with their ongoing strike until the state government met all their demands.
The state Chairman of the union, Mr Emmanuel Adhe, disclosed this on Tuesday in Asaba in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).
Adhe said that an agreement by the government to meet some of their demands and leave out some would not save the situation.
He said this was because the issues raised by the union were very important and needed to be urgently addressed once and for all.
Adhe also said that issues had been pendingfor long, adding that it was obvious that the Commissioner for Basic and Secondary Education, Prof. Patrick Muoboghare, was not presenting the issues as they were before the governor.
He explained that the Teachers Peculiar Allowance (TPA) was approved and implemented for some time and was later suspended for more than a year.
He said that the state government was yet topay and implement teachers' promotion since 2008, just as the arrears of the harmonised salary and minimum wage were yet to be paid to primary school teachers.
The chairman said that teachers in some states, who went on strike the same time as Delta had called off their strike because their governments had agreed to their demands and had commenced implementing such agreements.
Adhe said that no agreement was reached between the union and the government on the restoration of the 27.5 per cent allowance and date of commencing payment.
``In fact we have not reached any agreement with the state government, and until they meet all our demands, no going back on the strike.
Gov. Emmanuel Uduaghan had said that the government had commenced a verification exercise to fish out ghost workers in public primary and secondary schools in the state.
He said that preliminary investigations revealed that many of the teachers on the official payroll were not on ground in the classrooms.
Uduaghan said that the ugly trend must be stopped as the government was prepared topay the 27 per cent wage increase only to genuine teachers in the state's public schools.
``There are so many people on the payroll yet few are doing the job. This exercise will, therefore, expose the irregularities in the system and reduce the huge wage bill and eliminate waste,'' he said.
The governor said that automatic promotion of teachers was equally being discouraged, as part of measures to ensure that promotions were based on qualification andavailable vacancies. (NAN)
DCO/FNN/NO
please our school children should be put into consideration
the government should quickly respond to the teachers demand. to stop this frequent strike
When will this strike of a thing end? The govt on its part should see to their demands.
i dont think they would stop until they get their rights.government should comply
The strike should be ended asap.