The Nigeria Union of Teachers, Federal Capital Territory Wing, protest the inclusion of vacancy as a criterion for promotion of teachers.

The union officials and members stormed the Headquarters of the National Open University, Abuja, venue of the ongoing 2025 promotion examinations for 13,000 FCT Administration workers, to convey their demands.

The protest disrupted the promotion examination for FCT teachers scheduled for Monday.

Chairman of the union, Abdullahi Shafas, who led the protest, appealed to the Chairman of the FCT Civil Service Commission, Emeka Ezeh, to remove the vacancy condition for promotion.

Shafa argued that teachers were not pool staff and as such, deserve merit not vacancy as a condition for promotion.

According to him, vacancy as a condition for promotion, will stagnate career progression for teachers in the FCT.

He posited that Teachers should be promoted based on merit and successful performance in promotion examinations rather than the availability of vacancies.

Shafa added that teachers should not be subjected to a vacancy system, as they are deployed across schools in urban and rural communities, where many are facing security challenges, including banditry and kidnapping.

He pointed out that promotion was a key motivation for teachers and warned that stagnating teachers’ career progression would further discourage them and undermine the education sector.

He said that teachers remained among the least and under paid public servants in the country, despite the critical role they played in nation building.

According to him, some teachers in the country still earn between N50,000 and N60,000 as a monthly salary, in contrast to what their counterparts receive in some developed countries.

He explained that prolonged delays in resolving the promotion issue had forced teachers to leave their classrooms to participate in protests, with adverse consequences for pupils.

Responding to allegations that the protests might be politically motivated, Shafa insisted that the agitation was solely aimed at protecting the welfare and career progression of teachers.

Similarly, the Secretary of the union, Mrs. Margaret Jethro, stressed that teachers should not be subjected to the same promotion policy with civil servants and advocated the establishment of a Teachers Service Commission in FCT.

Jethro said that in 2023, 401 deputy directors passed the promotion examination but only 20 were promoted.

She reiterated the union’s demand that all the teachers that passed the promotion examination in 2023 and 2024 must be promoted before the union would allow the 2025 examination for teachers.