The Chairman of the Nigeria Union of Teachers in Kwara State, Alhaji Musa Abubakar, on Friday said that primary and junior secondary school teachers in the state were being owed a total of four months’ salary arrears in varying degrees of percentages.

Abubakar, who spoke on the sidelines of the 6th quadrennial conference of delegates of the state NUT, titled: ‘Funding of education in a depressed economy: which way forward,’ stated that payment of teachers under the management of the Universal Primary Education Board had become a thing of concern to all lovers of education.

He claimed that 1,302 teachers who had problems with their biometric verification numbers were being owed 75 per cent of their June 2016 salary.

According to him, immediately after the 2015 general elections, primary school teachers had begun receiving salaries on prorate basis or in percentages.

Abubakar said, “This abysmal situation has raised a lot of fundamental issues and led to hardship for the teachers. Despite the intervention of the Federal Government using bailout and Paris Club refund, the problems still persist.”

He, however, called on the Kwara State Government to urgently look into the plight of the affected teachers as the sufferings they were experiencing had become unbearable.

Meanwhile, a lecturer at the University of Texas, Prof. Toyin Falola, has identified timely payment of teachers’ salaries as one of the measures required to boost educational growth, national development and productivity.

Speaking during the first 2017 lecture series of the Faculty of Management Sciences, University of Ilorin, Kwara State, Falola said education must become a priority if the country must leverage on its internal capacities and compete globally.

Falola said, “We have to train and use high-quality teachers and provide incentives to those who perform well. Uncertified teachers must be phased out, as some of them are part of the problem. The good ones must not be over-burdened.”