he Federal Government, through the Federal Ministry of Education, has commenced plans to ensure that four biological children of teachers in its unity schools enjoy free secondary education, The PUNCH has learnt.

Our correspondent gathered that the development will start during the 2023/2024 academic session.

The plan was contained in a document obtained by the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, and obtained by our correspondent on Friday.

The document was titled “Revitalisation of teaching profession.”

It read, “Recall that in October 2020, President Muhammadu Buhari approved the policy document for the revitalisation of the teaching profession in the country at the basic and secondary levels. There are four updates here as follows.

“The policy is now an Act of the National Assembly; the elongation of years of service has now been implemented; provision has been made in the 2022 Budget for bursary allowances for deserving students in education courses across our universities; free education for four biological children of staff in our unity colleges nationwide is with effect from the 2023/2024 academic session. Relevant departments are already working on modalities for inclusion in the 2023 Budget.”

The PUNCH reports that Buhari had, during the 2020 World Teachers’ Day, promised to make teaching profession in Nigeria attractive.

He has promised that his regime would approve a special pension scheme to enable the teaching profession to retain its experienced talents as well as extend teachers retirement age to 65 years and the duration of teachers’ service years to 40 years.

He also noted that there would be a special salary scale for teachers in basic and secondary Schools, “including provisions for rural posting allowance, science teachers allowance and peculiar allowance.”

Source: The Punch