Abuja teachers turn back pupils over minimum wage

Pupils resume school first time in seven months, only to be turned back home

Primary school pupils reporting for school on Monday were sent back home as teachers protested the Federal Capital Authority’s failure to implement the new national minimum wage.

It is the first time many pupils will be in school since March when schools were shutdown at the start of the lockdown against the coronavirus pandemic.

Pupils sent off to school immediately returned home, asked back by their teachers.

The teachers accused area councils of failing to implement the wage already approved by federal government in April last year.

Chairman of the National Teachers Union NUT, FCT chapter, Stephen Knabayi while responding to the Daily Trust inquiry over the development, lamented that, while the FCT minister, approved and started implementation of the new national minimum wage in secondary schools, area councils in the territory in control local government education authorities were yet to implement it.

He said primary school teachers are already owed months of arrears.

He said the industrial action is pending when their demand is fulfilled.