Promotion Stagnation: Education Officers Recommend Disarticulation of Unity Colleges

Uchechukwu Nnaike

Worried by the non-creation of vacancies for the promotion of directorate officers in the Federal Ministry of Education, the affected officers have called on the Ministry of Education to intervene by disarticulating the unity colleges into junior and senior schools.

They said this would create about 109 vacancies for directors to head the junior secondary schools.

A statement signed by the Secretary of the National Association of Education Officers of Nigeria, Prince Tadese Abayomi Fatai, argued that with the five-year elongation of service for education officers, those who excelled in the promotion exams/interview should be promoted to enhance productivity, high performance, job satisfaction and greater output for the actualisation of the objectives of the National Policy on Education. 

“However, the non-creation of vacancies for the promotion of directorate officers in the educational sector will naturally lead to low productivity, non-performance, lack of interest, and no zeal, inspiration and low self-esteem in the teaching profession,” it said.

The statement recalled that In the 2023 promotion examination conducted by the Federal Civil Service Commission, no one from the Federal Ministry of Education took part in the exercise due to the promotion vacancy challenge. 

In 2024, it stated that staff were allowed to take part in the promotion interview, but surprisingly, out of 272 invited for oral interview for Grade Level (GL) 17, only three were promoted; for GL 16, only 14 were considered out of more than 2,000 staff; while only 53 were promoted out of 3,000 staff for GL 15.

The officers, therefore, appealed to the Minister of Education, Dr. Moruf Olatunji Alausa, to use his good office to ask for waivers and supplementary promotion results for his staff who were successful in the last promotion exams but were marginalised and deprived of their career progression because of non-availability of vacancies.