Nasarawa State contingent at the 2008 World Teachers Day celebration held at the Eagle Square, Abuja last week, was declared winner of the march past competition by teachers. The ceremony also featured the President’s Teachers and Schools Excellence Award.

The Nasarawa State teachers in a spectacular display during the match past which attracted rounds of applause from the mammoth crowd at the Eagle Square, was followed by Lagos State, while Enugu state took the third position.

Presenting the trophy to the winners of march past, the Gombe State commissioner for education Hajiya Aishatu M.B Ahmed, commended the performance of the Nasarawa State contingent during the competition, urging them to keep it up.

The trophy was accompanied by a N50,000 cash prize. Speaking in an interview with Nigerian Newsday, the leader of the Nasarawa State contingent, who is also the Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT) national representative in Nasarawa State, Comrade Febian M. Atso, applauded the efforts of teachers for their commitment to the development of the education sector in the state.

Comrade Atso thanked the Nasarawa State Government under the leadership of Alhaji Aliyu Akwe Doma for its support and concern for the welfare of teaches and the education sector in general in the state.

Comrade Atso who expressed his satisfaction with the performance of the Governor Aliyu Akwe Doma-led administration in the state, said that "these water and road projects going on in the state would definitely transform the state and improve the quality of lives of the people".

While assuring the governor of the support of all teachers in the state, Comrade Atso however, called on the government to pay more attention to the provision of educational infrastructure and welfare of teachers in the state

In a related development, the state chairman of the Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT) Comrade Asoloko Maku, has advocated for a legislation to make it compulsory for public servants to send their children to public schools.

He stated this last week in Lafia, the Nasarawa State capital, while answering questions from journalists at the NUT secretariat.

Comrade Maku decried the situation where children of highly-placed government officials attended private schools, saying that until the trend was changed, public schools would continue to suffer neglect.

He said that the Ghana model where public servants were ordered to send their children to public schools should be adopted in Nigeria.

‘Doing so will make public servants have the much needed concern for public schools and as a result, the current mess experienced in public schools will be a thing of the past," he maintained.