Sixty outstandng teachers from public -primary and secondary schools and state -owned tertiary institutions in Kwara state Wednesday bagged different categories of awards sponsored by the state’s governor, Mallam AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq, to mark the 2022 world teachers’ day celebration.
This is just as the governor announced plans by his administration to float a housing scheme loan for trachers in collaboration with the federal government.
The governor gave the hint in his address at the world teachers’ day celebration held at the state’s banquet hall Ilorin where the outstanding teachers went home with gifts ranging from Laptops, Smart TV, Deep freezeers, microwaves, mobile phones among others.
The theme for this year’s celebration is “The Transformation of Education Begins With Teachers”.
A break down of the best teachers’ awards saw 48 teachers from primary and secondary schools across the 16 local government areas of the state receiving awards of best performing teachers in primary, Junior secondary and senior secondary schools categories.
A teacher each from the state school for special needs, Ilorin and normadic primary school also got awards of best performing teachers.
Best performing lecturers from nine tretiary institutions including the Ilorin International Aviation College and International Vocational Centre, Ajase- Ipo also got awards of best performing lecturers.
The state chairman of the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT), Comrade Oyewo Bashir Adeshina, said the awards sponsored by the governor was “the first of its kind to be introduced in the world teachers’ day celebration in the state”.
He praised governor AbdulRazaq for investigating hugely in the welfare and transformation of education sector in the state.
In his key note address, Professor Stephen Olajide of faculty of education, University of Ilorin noted that the awards for the deserved teachers was a challenge to do more.
“It is a challenge because to whom much is giving much is expected.You will need to do more in terms of class room activities and monitoring of the students.
“You also need to help yourselves to ensure that this government continue because if a government can give you this, next year, it will be giving you cars,” he said.
The university teacher challenged his colleagues in the state to “justify government huge investment” in education, adding that government alone cannot fund education.
He said though UNESCO had advocated that governments should allocate 25% of their national budget to funding of the education sector, realising such might be diffult for governments because of other demands completing for resources.
