Vice President-Elect promises Free Education, Houses for Teachers

Newly elected Nigeria Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo on Wednesday stated that the Buhari administration would provide teachers in public schools free education and housing scheme to enhance their performance.

Professor Osinbajo who gave the hint during a consultative meeting with Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State and members of Nigerian Union of Teachers, NUT in Ikeja, said continuous education for teachers was one of the core programmes of APC to raise standard of education in the country.

In his words, “Lagos is the mode of what we intend to do. For instance, we talk about free education for science, technology, engineering and maths and free education at the tertiary level for teachers. So teachers who want to go to university will enjoy free education.

“It is a very important programme because one of the basic problems we have is the fact that we have not been able to continue effectively with teacher training.

“So, continuous education for teachers and teacher training in particular is very important to us. It is important for us in Lagos to know that we are a very important part of what the Federal Government will do in education.

Also, Osinbajo restated the plan of the APC led government to provide free housing units for all staff members working in the critical sector of Nigerian domestic economy, noting that public education would benefit from the programme.

According to the former attorney-general, “Many have talked about the welfare of teachers which is very important, but this is always tied to funding just as welfare of other workers. But, one of the crucial things we want to do is housing.

“I think we need to be able to work together with the Federal Government on the issue of housing for teachers. We have a big housing policy but our housing policy is going to be based on first and foremost on those in the critical sector of the economy and teachers have been identified as one of those in the critical sector for housing.

“I want us to be extremely well positioned for it. We need to understand that four years is a very short time and we need to be very organised to take advantage of it.”

Earlier, Lagos State Governor Babatunde Fashola said Lagos State has made a lot of progress in education haven moved from 10% performance to 50% performance.