From Scholastica Hir, Makurdi
Benue State Government has pledged to boost the morals of teachers in the state by ensuring that every one of them owns his or her house before retirement.
The Government is also unveiling a loan scheme that will enable teachers access loans to give their children better educational trainings.
The Director General, Benue State Education Quality Assurance Agency (BEQA), Dr. Terna Francis, disclosed this on Thursday while playing host to members of the Correspondents’ Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, (NUJ) Benue state Council.
Dr Francis who commended the state Governor, Rev Fr Hyacinth Alia for deliberately motivating Benue teachers and the entire state workforce said the days when teachers received their salaries in heaven was over.
He recalled that “In the past, teachers were nobodies. They were considered as anything but going forward, the State Governor Rev Fr Hyacinth Alia has promised that he is going to make sure that before retirement, every teacher is going to own a house of his or her own.”
The BEQA DG also disclosed that the Governor has directed his office and that of Benue Investment Property Company, (BIPC) and the Ministry of Education to put together a loan scheme for the state government that would enable teachers access loan and pay over a period of five years at a very low interest rate.
“And their children too can go and study abroad and the state government through that scheme will be able to pay and deduct little by little from the salary of that teacher.
“So gone are the day when you think that because my father is a primary school teacher, I cannot go to school or a private university. We are going to send out children to the best of Universities in the world and we are already soften the ground, we are preparing the modalitiesand very soon the Governor will unveil it,” he said.
The DG who is barely one year in office said his office has strengthened monitoring around schools in Benue to ensure that the Benue child receive quality education and in a conducive environment.
He said his team has also ready visited 900 school so far where he uncovered ghost schools and ghost teachers saying “There are some people that are teachers for Benue state government but they are in Abuja. There are teachers that are supposed to be in Gbajimba, Guma LGA but they are resident here in Makurdi, the state capital and are receiving salaries from the state government.
Also lamenting about the condition of some schools, Dr Francis said “I met a school in a three bedroom apartment with Government approval, others are in a place that looks like a poultry farm.”
He noted that by July this year 2014,his office in collaboration with the state Urban Development will go round such identified schools to close them down.