Katsina pay S-Power teachers their 5 months arrears

As the 2019/2020 academic session is set to resume in Katsina state, the second Batch of S-Power teaching corps are left without payment of their stipends. The Masari led administration owes them for five months. This is an unfortunate development that places untold hardships on the beneficiaries. S-Power is a Social Investment Programme initiated by […]

As the 2019/2020 academic session is set to resume in Katsina state, the second Batch of S-Power teaching corps are left without payment of their stipends. The Masari led administration owes them for five months. This is an unfortunate development that places untold hardships on the beneficiaries.

S-Power is a Social Investment Programme initiated by the administration of Governor Aminu Bello Masari. The aim of the programme is to address the problem of massive unemployment among the teeming graduates and at the same time reduce the acute shortage of teaching staff in the state public owned schools. The initiative which is a copycat of the Federal Government’s Npower, is divided in to two batches. In the first Batch, five thousand NCE holders were recruited to teach in primary schools across the state on a monthly stipend of 20,000 Naira for a period of 2 years; while in the second batch, two thousand university graduates were engaged to teach in the secondary schools based on a monthly stipend of 25,000 Naira for a period of 24 months with effect from the day they assumed duties. Once offer is accepted, a candidate would be posted to any part of the Zonal Education Quality Assurance.

Partly because of the shortage of teaching staff, the S-Power Corps were overburdened with excessive workloads even beyond their capacity in some cases. Some of them were made to teach a whole arm consisting of 9 classes with over hundred students each. In addition, other extracurricular responsibilities like Form or House Master would be assigned to them. In spite of these sacrifices, receiving their monthly stipend has now became a rocket science.

The issue of payment has put them in a delicate situation. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to take care of oneself let alone to transport themselves to their various place of Primary Assigments ( some were posted to a distant of over 20 kilometers). In this situation, how do the government wants them to survive and deliver their best in the classroom? Even more worrisome is the stories of those who prior to the introduction of S-Power were working in private schools or as casual staff. They left for S-Power and now they are facing challenges with payments. A double loss! Some of them have families to support.

All the beneficiaries I conversed with told me they no longer see themselves as S-Power Corp members. From what I gathered, almost all of them are planning to boycott their Place of Primary Assignments until their arrears is settled. If this is allowed to happen, it will be a big blow to the schools who are battling with insufficient teaching staff and this may rubbish the whole essence of the programme.

. I suggest that if the state government could not continue with the programme, instead of giving them false hope, it would be more honorable to terminate the appointments and pay them their outstanding six months stipend. It’s their right not a favour. I think that Naira 125, 000 would be enough for many of them to start up some businesses.

Sadiq Tijjani Inuwa  [email protected]