Ebola: NUT threatens FG on resumption date
Posted by admin | 10 years ago | 2,727 times
The president of the National Union of Teachers, Michael Alogba, has disclosed that the union will not allow its members to teach until it has been scientifically and medically proven that the country was out of the Ebola scourge.
He made this statement in a telephone interview with the PUNCH correspondent on Wednesday.The union said that if the Federal government fails to put in place necessary measures to protect its members and pupils from contracting the deadly Ebolavirus, it would not go back to the classroom.
It would be recalled that the federal government, through the Minister of Education, Mr. Ibrahim Shekarau, had announced the 22nd of September as the new resumption date for all schools across the nation.This new date has drawn criticism from Doctors, Activists and civil society groups who alleged that the government was stampeded into announcing it by some powerful school proprietors.
Again, the House of Representatives had on Tuesday, directed its Committee on Education to take another look on the new resumption date in view of the fact that the EVD had yet to be contained in the country.Mr. Alogba further said, if the new resumption date was not extended by Monday,the NUT national executive council will meet on Tuesday in Abuja to take a drastic action.
He mentioned that the union had already written the federal government on its position over the new resumption date.The federal government on its part, has defended the new resumption date.
Speaking through the Minister of Health, Professor Onyebuchi Chukwu after the weekly Federal Executive council meeting in Abuja, the minister said the calls for postponement is as a result of “irrational fear” which lack scientific basis.“There is no scientific basis for school resumption to be postponed.
There is no community transmission of the disease in Nigeria. That is what separates Nigeriafrom other countries. It is what I call irrational fear, we don’t need to be irrational about this” the minister said.
On the other hand, the NMA and the House of Representatives committee on education will on September 15, meet to address the appropriateness of a review on the resumption date.
Source: PUNCH
Readers Comments
comment(s)
No comments yet. Be the first to post comment.
