<Thank you for joining me here today. I feel greatly inspired to do this Social Empowerment Advocacy. I think this is an inspiration borne out of a God-ordained desire to be of inspiration to you all today.
Without giving in to much of preamble today, permit me to round up the 8th fact to consider before you register your child in a school. I identified the 8th fact as consider the working conditions of service of the academic and non-academic staff. I discussed with you largely on remuneration and work hours of teachers and other members of staff.
Today it is important that I consider other benefits, which creates stakeholders mentality in any organisation, including the school system. The word, ‘stakeholder’ is one of the most abused words in organisations. Leaders of organisations want the workforce to have stakeholder mentality without giving them any stake in terms of ownership and other benefits, which creates a stakeholder mentality. The truth of the matter is that until members of staff have a real stake in the system, he/she may not have a stakeholder mentality. I see many schools where the teachers and other members of staff cannot register their own children because they cannot afford the fees. The question I ask is that will the teachers and other do their work as a stakeholder when they know their own children cannot attend the school in which they sweat to give their best. How will they feel when they know that the children of the promoters of the school attend the school? You may want to find out what is the pension plan of the institution of learning. According to the Pension Reform Act, 2004, any organization with a minimum of 5 members of staff must follow the pension plan as laid out by the law. Please find below the highlights of the pension plan according to the provisions of the law:
 The Pension Commission regulates the pension administration
 The major operators are the Pension Fund Administrator (PFAs) and the Pension Fund Custodian (PFCs)
 The PFA is in charge of managing the pension fund it gets the people registered with it while the PFC just holds the funds the PFA has received
 Each staff is at liberty to choose the PFA of his choice and the company he works for cannot impose a PFA on him. He can also change PFAs if he so wishes.
 The minimum contribution is 15% of salary. 7.5% from the employee and 7.5% from employer. The employer can decide to contribute extra above the 7.5% if he so wishes.
 If the staff moves to a new company, he just informs the new company of his PFA and the new company would the start remitting his pension to his PFA.
 The employer can decide to bear the burden of paying the total pension of the staff i.e. the 15%.
 The pension payments are tax deductible i.e. they are treated like expenses by the company.
 In addition, every employer must take out an insurance policy for all staff.
Apart from the foregoing, you may want to find out what is the medical policy for the members of staff. How often are the remuneration and other benefits reviewed to meet up with a staff contribution and economic and political state of the nation? Please note that the ability of the school to meet the foregoing may be dependent of its size and financial prosperity. My conclusion however is that where there is a will for running an excellent institution of learning, there will be a written policy on staff working conditions(call it HR Manual), which may be implemented in phases as the school grows in economic strength.
There are people, who have been able to embrace higher values and have accepted stakeholder mentality because of their love for children and the future they see for themselves and their own children. This group of people are intrinsicly motivated on their job of giving a future and a hope to the children under their care. I must therefore say that this group of people are always very few within the school system, particularly in the Third World, where we live in the jungle and survival is the theme song of meaningful living for many. Therefore the destiny of the school system must not be built on the sanity of few but on a system of reward, which encourages service delivery from the heart. The school system must move from a winner-takes-all mentality to a win-win mentality.
I think I should round up on this issue of remuneration and other benefits part of the working conditions. Tomorrow, I will round up the 8th fact with a discussion on the premium the school places on freedom of its staff, which is a crucial part of conditions of service. Stay INSPIRED, it is a great week ahead.