The Nigeria Union of Teachers on Thursday directed its members in public primary schools in Kaduna State to end their strike and return to the classroom.
The chairman of the state chapter of the union, Mr. Audi Amba, gave the order to go back to work, shortly after an emergency meeting of the state executive council in Kaduna, the state capital.
Teachers in the state had embarked upon an indefinite strike on January 8, 2018 to force the Kaduna State Government to rescind its decision to sack over 20,000 primary school teachers for failing a competency test in June, 2017.
Other workers in the state, led by the President of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Ayuba Wabba, also defied the intimidating presence of security operatives last Thursday and held a rally in the state capital to protest the sacking of the teachers.
Explaining why the strike was called off, Amba said Governor Nasir el-Rufai had decided to give teachers who failed the competency test another opportunity for recruitment into the state teaching service.
He noted that the NUT, as a body committed to support the government in its effort to provide qualitative education in the state, had no other choice than to call off its 10-day-old strike.
Amba said, “The Kaduna wing of the NUT commends the decision of the governor to give the 21,780 teachers, who did not pass the recent competency test, another opportunity for consideration under the State Universal Education Board’s programme of continuous recruitment. The union sees this as an opportunity to resolve the impasse between the teachers and the state government, the end result of which will be an improvement in service delivery in our public schools.
“In the light of the above, the executive council of the state wing unanimously resolved to reciprocate the gesture of the Kaduna State Government by calling off, with immediate effect, the indefinite strike action embarked upon by teachers in the public schools and secondary schools.
The state chapter of the NUT went on to extend a hand of fellowship to the government and urged it to always engage the union in all matters relating to the implementation of service delivery in the education sector and teachers welfare.
