The approved 65-year retirement age and 40 years of service for teachers is paying off as senior civil servants, especially education officers, who have attained the age of retirement are now hiding under the cloak of the new law to grab teaching jobs across the country.
LEADERSHIP checks revealed that some directors and other senior staff due for retirement in the Federal Ministry of Education and some of its agencies have been working out their redeployment to secondary schools to benefit from the new teachers’ retirement age.
It was also gathered that some of the senior civil servants, after attaining 60 years of retirement recently, worked their way out to some federal government colleges as teachers.
Our investigation further revealed that one of the senior staff (servants (names withheld) has also been deployed to a federal government college located in Abuja.
According to sources, the manipulation came from the zeal to benefit from the 65-year retirement age approved under former President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.
It would be recalled that former President Muhammadu Buhari had during the 2020 World Teachers Day promised that teachers in Nigeria would enjoy a new retirement age.
After the Federal Executive Council (FEC) approved the bill in January 2021, Buhari transmitted the bill to the National Assembly in June of that year.
The bill, which has now become law, increased the retirement age of teachers from 60 to 65 years.
The legislation also extended the duration of service for teachers in the country from 35 to 40 years.
Section 1 of the Act stipulates that teachers in Nigeria shall compulsorily retire on the attainment of 65 years of age or 40 years of pensionable service, whichever is earlier.
Section 3 of the Act provides that the Public Service Rule or any Legislation that requires a person to retire from Public Service at 60 years of age or after 35 years of Service shall not apply to teachers in Nigeria.
The new retirement age for teachers is a law which mandates that once one is engaged as a teacher under the government, whether federal, state or local, his/her retirement age is 65 unless he/she decides to retire earlier than that.
It was also gathered that their retirement was necessitated by the fact that they had attained the mandatory age of retirement and also the required active years in service.
The mandatory retirement age for all grades in the service is 60 years or 35 years of pensionable service, whichever is earlier.
However credible sources in the Federal Ministry of Education and National Senior Secondary Education Commission confirmed that some senior staff have already worked out their redeployment.
When contacted, the spokesperson for the Education Ministry, Ben Bem Goong, did not respond to calls or messages by our reporter.
