The House of Representative at its plenary session of Thursday, 1 February 2018 mandated its Committee on Basic Education and Services to interface with the Federal Ministry of Education with a view to ensuring the regularization of the appointments of the teachers employed and being paid by the Parents Teachers Association (PTA) at the Federal Government College, Ohafia and all other such Federal Government Colleges, and report back within six (6) weeks for further legislative action.
Presenting the motion of the floor of the Hon. Nkole Uko Ndukwe (PDP: Abia) stated that Federal Government College, Ohafia, Abia State was established, along with other Colleges to provide qualitative education for young people to increase the level of literacy in Nigeria. However, he noted that despite such laudable objectives, the lack of teachers in core subjects like Mathematics, English Language, Biology, Physics, Chemistry, forced the Parents Teachers Association (PTA) of the College to employ teachers for those subjects and pay them. He also described the predicament as a situation replicated in other Federal Government Colleges.
In addition, Hon. Ndukwe noted that while the teachers had been on the payroll of the PTA for up to sixteen years on meagre emoluments of between N20, 000 and N30, 000 per month without any indication that the Federal Government would regularize their appointments, there were teachers who were directly employed by the Federal Government many years after the and whose appointments had been regularized. He stressed that it was important for the House to look into the matter as it had become increasingly more difficult for the PTA to continue to shoulder the burden of paying the salaries of the teachers on its payroll since the Federal Ministry of Education had failed to regularize their appointments despite PTA’s several requests.
He further drew attention to the fact that the teachers employed by the PTA were far more in number than the regular teachers and that given the magnitude of the teaching responsibilities they bear, the Federal Government College in Ohafia with several others around the country would be forced to shut down if the teachers become frustrated and resigned. He also warned the House to act as he feared that such development could have disastrous consequences for parents and students alike.
