Laleye Dipo in Minna
Tears flowed freely from the faces of 13 Teachers on Monday when the management of the Police Secondary School in Minna Niger state fired them.
Those sacked had been on temporary employment with the school for over 12 years.
Narrating their plight to journalists, the sacked teachers claimed they were relieved of their employments without being given any notice.
According to them, they were part of 38 temporary teachers who had been working for the organisation with the assurance that they would be permanently employed when the go ahead for recruitment at the Force Education Department in Abuja.
However, according to the troubled teachers, what the Commandant of the School did when opportunity for recruitment arose was to “engage Youth Corp members to take over our jobs.”
“The school also retained 17 of our colleagues but on temporary basis and paid them for two months,” one of the teachers told reporters in Minna.
It was learnt that all the 38 teachers were university graduates and holders of the National Certificate in Education NCE with some of them widows.
All efforts to speak to the Commandant of the School was abortive but the Chairman of the Parents Teachers Association (PTA) of the School, Alhaji Sulaiman Mohammed, confirmed the report.
Alhaji Mohammed said efforts to make the school management change its stand, especially when all the affected teachers had been doing “very well and dedicated to their jobs,” were abortive.
The PTA chairman said initially, the PTA wanted to take over the payment of their salaries ” but we discovered that it will not be sustainable” because the graduates among them earn N40,000 monthly while the NCE holders collect N30,000 monthly.
