A Yoruba Youth Group, Alliance of Yoruba Youth Council Worldwide, AYYCW, over the weekend condemned the neglect of teachers of private schools amidst the COVID-19 pandemic by states and federal government.
The group also known as ‘Odo-Koya’, emphasized that it was a sad reality that the teachers who had been adversely affected with the COVID-19 pandemic since its outbreak in Nigeria due to closure of school were not considered in the distribution of palliatives.
In a statement issued and signed by the National Publicity Secretary of the group, Ogbeni Oladipo Gbeminiyi, said “it is a thing of shame that while Government officials take home millions and billions of Naira as Covid-19 palliative, the common man is left at the mercy of poverty.”
According to him, private school teachers who make up the larger chunk of the teaching force of the nation are crying and suffering in silence as they are confronted with untold hardship.
He added that the group’s encounter with some private school teachers was not encouraging with the teachers lamenting their plights “as most of them cannot feed themselves not to talk of their family, and some of have died out of frustration and inability to resolve medical issues as a result of nonpayment of their salaries due to the Covid-19 impact on schools.”
While charging the governments to as a matter of urgency to look into the plight of these group of people who are mainly youths, to stem a new tide of criminality that is inevitable, Gbeminiyi advised that government at all levels should work together with school owners and give out monetary palliatives to the teachers and some private school owners.
He also condemned the attitude of most school owners for not providing financial support to their teachers considering the fact that they have served the school owners and deserve some level of financial assistance as a form of payback.
