The Federal Executive Council, FEC, on Wednesday approved a new bill to extend the retirement age for teachers in Nigeria from 60 years to 65 years.
In the FEC meeting presided by President Muhammadu Buhari, approval of the bill Harmonized Retirement Age for Teachers Bill, 2021 and sent to the National Assembly for its consideration and approval.
This was made known by the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, made known to State House correspondents after the meeting.
The bill seeks to increase the retirement age of teachers from 60 to 65 years and also increase the possible years of service from 35 to 40 years.
Adamu explained the bill would give legal backing to new measures by the current administration to enhance the teaching profession in the country.
He said: The ‘Harmonized Retirement Age for Teachers in Nigeria Bill 2020’, seeks to give legal backing to new measures by the Muhammadu Buhari administration to enhance teaching in the country.
“This memo that was approved for the Ministry of Education is a giant step towards what we set out to do last year, with the approval of some special packages for teachers by the president. So, at the meeting today, Council approved that a bill which will be called ‘Harmonized Retirement Age for Teachers in Nigeria Bill 2020’ be sent to the National Assembly for enactment into law so that all the promises made by the president and all the approvals he had given to me will now begin to be put into effect because this is the legal backing that is required for it,” Mr. Adamu said.
“The essence of the bill actually is to give legal backing for the approval of a new retirement age of 65 for teachers and then the service period being extended to 40 years.”
The minister also listed the introduction of bursary awards, special rural posting allowances, and other measures as some highlights of the bill.
“The intention is to attract the best brains to the teaching profession and for that, the president approved the reintroduction of bursary awards, improving teacher quality, funding teaching practice form TETFUND, the enhanced entry point for teachers. The president also approved that there should be some special allowances, like rural posting allowance and science teachers’ allowance,” the minister said.
Recall that, President Muhammadu Buhari, during the occasion of the 2020 World Teachers day, had approved a special salary scale for teachers and the number of years of service from 35 years to 40 years and retirement age to 65 years.
