•ASUP, Adamawa State Polytechnic, Yola, tackles management over non-payment of SIWES, maladministration, etc
All is not well between the management of Adamawa State Polytechnic Branch, Yola, and its Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP). The issues that brought the estrangement between the two parties, range from the alleged over-stressing of the academic staff, (a situation where a staff is said to be compelled to teach over 500 students at a stretch); lack of adequate laboratory facilities, (as a result, so goes the allegation, a lab which is supposed to contain 30 to 40 students is now said to used by over 500 students - and the situation is said to have placed students and teachers in a difficult unfavorable teaching- learning environment).There is also the allegation of refusal, failure of the management to implement full payment of the SIWES backlog allowance of lecturers, despite the fact that the Rector had, on several occasions, promised to pay the money. Although the SIWES allowances have been pending since 2002, the government has pledged to pay up, from 2002 to 2010, while the rest are to be paid from 2011 to date.
Investigations carried out by Education Review indicate that the genesis of the crisis has to do with the mutilation that took place during the migration from EUSS to HATITIS (Harmonised Tertiary Institutions Teachers Integrated Salary) scale. The former Governor, Boni Haruna, had in 2006, approved full implementation of the HATTIS with effect from 2007. But as at the time of the said approval, CONTISS (Consolidated Tertiary Education Institutions Salary Structure) was being enjoyed by other Polytechnics across the country. The matter was worsened when Haruna’s successor, the former Governor Murtala Nyako, rejected the 2006 agreement and initiated a new negotiation for the CONPCASS SCALE in 2011.
However, the migration from HATTTIS to CONPCASS (Consolidated Polytechnic and Colleges of Education Academic Staff Structure) did not correct the said mutilation in HATTIS, and, therefore, never considered the missing CONTISS salary scale, neither did integrate allowances such as SIWES and furniture allowance enjoyed annually into the salary as to make it consolidated. The alleged mutilation of migration from HATTIS to CONPCASS made it mandatory that school management should bear the burden of paying its staff SIWES at 15% of basic salary annually from the time the agreement came into effect in 2011.
Decrying the poor performance of students, the protesting staff called for the standardization of the polytechnic in order to produce students that would meet the challenges in technological needs of Adamawa State. This can be achieved, they noted, by recruiting academic staff that possess the prerequisite qualifications to practice as lecturers in the institution. They added that the institution has not been meeting these challenges because of the recruitment pattern of academic staff. To make the products of the institution employable, they submitted that the morale of staff be boosted by paying them their pending entitlements and regular benefits in scholarship awards to further their education, which in turn, will help in rejuvenating the education system in the state.
According to Dr Colman Tizhe Goji, the local ASUP branch chairman who narrated the plight of the staff to Education Review, these problems, namely the non-payment of SIWES entitlements and victimization of staff were the main reason for the three months strike embarked upon to press home their demands, which, they believed, could have encouraged them to perform maximally.
However, in a chat with Education Review, the Registrar, Alhaji Ahmed Dadi, disclosed that the government had, initially, settled the payment of SIWES to all concerned academic staff, from 2002 to 2009, while the polytechnic management is responsible for payment of the backlog from 2010 to date. According to him, the management had already paid up the SIWES in respect of 2009 to 2010, while the remaining backlog for 2011 to date will be settled. Dadi said that over N45 million had been disbursed to the academic staff of the institution for the SIWES, as it is not every academic staff that should be benefit from the SIWES allowances. Noting that it is not every academic staff that supervises students on ITF or teaching practice and other academic exercises, Dadi argued that the non-payment of the SIWES ought not have necessitated the strike action embarked upon by the whole academic staff of the institution.
The Registrar said the management has resolved to pay part of the backlog of the SIWES from 2002 to 2009, in November,2014, adding by then the management must have generated some funds from admissions and other sources of revenue of the institution for those academic staff that are entitled. However, while management is saying that it is to pay 2%, the academic staff is demanding 15%. As a result of growing controversy on the issue, Dadi said the management is awaiting the government’s directive as to what percentage to be paid to the academic staff.
Other contentious issues include the alleged wrongful appointment of key principal officers of the institution like Rector, Registrar and Bursar, which the union argues, should have been advertised, but was not done, the mass transfer of academic and non-academic staff, without inputs from the various departments concerned, or adherence to due process, which should involve interviews. The ASUP leadership has alleged that over 160 persons have been unlawfully transferred since the inception of Prof. Bobboi Umar administration. The ASUP leadership also frowns at the non-promotion of qualified staff. Members who spoke with Education Review alleged that such non-promotion of academic staff is a means of victimizing efficient and dedicated staff as much as it is of favouring the management loyalists but inefficient staff at the expense of efficient ones.
The ASUP leadership also frowns at the alleged disregard of rules and regulations of civil services in the appointment of college Directors and Heads of Departments which has led to the placement or responsibility on a junior staff to head a senior one, or lower rank officer to head senior officers, which they said is against the civil service rules which accord respect to seniority. In a similarly development, ASUP has protested the existence of a parallel ASUP, which Tizhe described as unlawful as he did the freezing of its members’ account with a commercial bank.
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