According to the organisation, there were many teachers with the necessary qualification that were eager to be employed, who can effectively address the deficit occasioned by the retirement of older teachers.

In his address at the 2019 assembly of the union, Nasir Idris, the NUT President, noted that the N-Power scheme employs people without necessary qualification, and would not ensure the best for the sector.

His words: “There is an urgent need to recruit more teachers into our schools on a permanent basis as against the N-Power teaching program, which does not render the desired benefits and should be discontinued.

“We want something that is permanent for our profession. This N-Power is just a temporary measure and so we need the federal and state governments to recruit more teachers to man our secondary and primary schools.

“We need governments to recruit qualified teachers to man our schools rather than this N-Power programme. If you look at the N-Power programme, people that do not have the necessary qualification for teaching have been sent to schools to teach. What are they going to teach?

“We have qualified teachers that are waiting to be employed. That is why we said government should stop that one (N-Power) let them recruit qualified teachers to manage our schools.”

SAHARA