President Muhammadu Buhari has approved a special salary scale for teachers and has increased years of service for educators from 35 to 40.

The Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, announced this on Monday in a speech delivered on behalf of the President in commemoration of World Teacher’s Day.

The President has also announced the increase of the years of service for teachers from 35 to 40 years.

The Nigerian teachers over the years have been agitating for amongst several other things increase in their retirement age, increase in salary and better welfare packages.

In making the announcement at the 2020 World Teachers Day celebration in Abuja, President Buhari explained that the implementation of the new teachers’ salary scheme was to encourage the teachers in delivering better services.

The president said that the special salary scale is for basic and secondary school teachers as he also increased the retirement age of teachers from 60 to 65, and the number of years of service 35 to 40.

According to him, these were parts of ongoing moves by the government to revitalize and reposition the teaching profession in the country, by introducing fundamental and far-reaching changes. This is as the president said a review of teachers’ development policies had revealed huge gaps in the quantity and quality of teachers at all levels of the nation’s education system.

Buhari said the implementation of the new policies was to attract best brains into the teaching profession and encourage teachers in delivering better services that would produce quality students who would, in turn, contribute to national development.