The presidential candidate of Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPN), Dr. Obiageli Ezekwesili, has promised Nigerian teachers in full-time employment a comfortable accommodation if she wins the 2019 presidential election.
She said in a statement by the spokesman for her campaign organisation, Mr. Ozioma Ubabukoh that hosing for teachers would be one of the policy thrusts of her administration.
“Housing for teachers tackles poverty, which currently plagues workers… and discourages most from aspiring to be teachers.
“No teacher in full-time employment should be unable to live in comfortable accommodation, within a reasonable distance of his or her place of work. This initiative serves as a financial inducement towards teachers becoming house owners,” she said.
She expressed dismay that it had become difficult for teachers to have a comfortable accommodation adding that the rate of poverty in Nigeria also crippled the standard of education in the country.
The ACPN flag bearer also promised that her administration would reduce the current 5.4 million out-of-school children in Nigeria by 20 per cent annually.
“Using the Universal Basic Education Commission’s incentivising funds to states once again as our handle, our ACPN administration will seek to attain gender parity in education concurrently with our goal of reducing the number of OOSC.”
“This approach will embed the diversity of girl-child education initiatives within our obligation to Sustainable Development Goals4 on ensuring universal access to qualitative education to all citizens.”
On her plans for children with disabilities in public schools, Ezekwesili said she would replicate an education agenda which catered for special children while serving as education minister.
“The knowledge that between 15-20 per cent of children who attend public schools have one type of learning disability or another, which the poor segment of our country are seldom able to handle alone, will compel our administration to reopen the policy on special needs education, which was first comprehensively formalised during the tenure of Obiageli Ezekwesili as minister of education,” she said.
