KADUNA — Retirees of the National Teachers’ Institute, NTI, have honoured Dr. Aminu Ladan Sharehu, the Director-General and Chief Executive of organisation, for improving their welfare package.

The commendation came when Mallam Musa Umar, who is the Vice Chairman of the retirees’ union, led a delegation of members to Sharehu’s office in Kaduna where he told him that the lives of the institute’s retirees had improved significantly as a result of the administration’s commitment to their welfare.

While congratulating the Sharehu on his re-appointment and his conferment with the National Productivity Order of Merit Award by President Goodluck Jonathan, Umar said it was obvious that the director general deserved the recognition as he had brought about improved teacher training across the states of the federation.

Responding, Sharehu said he was determined from the day he was appointed to leave a mark in teachers’ training in Nigeria.

He said: “Since we came on board, we tried to come up with a strategy on how to tackle one of the challenges, that is the issue of staff welfare. This was included as a component in our Five-Point Target, which has been yielding results.”

Sharehu said his administration had cleared pensioners’ backlog from 2004 and now regularly pays monthly pension to all retirees and expressed optimism that such practice would be sustained even after his administration.   Dr. Sharehu said few a years ago, the administration successfully changed the salary structure of the Institute, being a tertiary institute from the Civil Service salary structure to Consolidated Research and Allied Institutions Salary Scale (CONRAISS).

Dr Sharehu said the improved welfare packages was to encourage the staff of the Institute and also attract others from outside.

In a related development, the NTI boss has said that training and re-training was necessary for high quality teachers.   He stated this at the induction ceremony of the 2010 to 2012 NTI graduands of NCE and PGDE of Kaduna State centres, which was carried out by the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN)’s Chief Executive.

Dr. Sharehu said with quality teachers, the nation would be great. He also said the Institute in Kaduna State, started with a student population of less than 1000, but as of December, 2013, it has recorded over 11,000 students in fifteen centres of the state. He said NTI is one of the major feeders of teachers into the Nigerian educational system.

During the occasion, the DG presented 200 NCE and PGDE graduands to the Registrar and Chief Executive of TRCN for the official induction exercise. “TRCN induction programme is very vital to all teachers because once a teacher is inducted into TRCN; he/she becomes a professional teacher,” he said.

He further urged the inductees to regard the oath they have taken with high sense of responsibility and professionalism. He congratulated and enjoined them to be good ambassadors of NTI, TRCN and the nation at large

While the NTI is empowered by the enabling laws to provide courses of instruction leading to development, upgrading and certification of teachers as specified in the relevant syllabus through the Distance Education Technique, the TRCN in its Act is empowered to determine, among others, who are teachers and what standard of knowledge and skills are required from a teacher.

The Registrar and Chief Executive of the TRCN, Prof. Addison Mark Wokocha said in exercising this mandate, TRCN directs its vision to regulate teacher education, training and practice at all levels of the education system.

He said the intention is to match teacher quality, discipline, professionalism, reward and dignity with international standard.

“Our mission here now is to implement a critical mandate of induction and registration of NCE/DLS and PGDE graduates of NTI,” he said.