The Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP) suspended its protracted strike last week. The industrial action, which began on October 4, 2013, lasted nine months and eleven days, making it one of the longest strikes in Nigerian history.
The suspension of the strike, which is for three months, followed the request of the new Minister of Education, Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau, for time to look into the contentious issues that had stalled all efforts to bring the action to an end.
We welcome the suspension of this strike that had kept polytechnic students away from their studies for virtually a whole session. The losses from the strike are, indeed, unquantifiable. We laud the new minister for promptly moving to break the impasse and advise that all the issues that had made it impossible to end the strike earlier should be addressed promptly, and with all sincerity, to ensure a permanent end to the strike after the three months suspension.
It is saddening that strikes have become a permanent feature of the Nigerian education sector. A similarly protracted strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) was called off only in December last year after university students had been sent home for about six months.
Teachers in the nation’s colleges of education, under the aegis of the Colleges of Education Academic Staff Union (COEASU) also began a strike on December 31, last year, following a 60-day ultimatum issued to the Federal Government on September 16, 2013.
These frequent disruptions of the academic calendars of tertiary institutions in the country are inimical to delivery of quality education in the country. It is necessary that all the issues that informed the strikes in polytechnics and colleges of education should be tackled and rested at the same time, because they are similar and common in our education sector.
Even the most casual observer will agree that these strikes are a symptom of organisational disarray in the nation’s education sector. They indicate an absence of a coherent policy on tertiary education.
They also project a failure of administration at the higher education level, which has been forcing thousands of Nigerians to seek education outside the country. Nigerians, in large numbers, throng Ghanaian institutions. Thousands go to Turkey, India, the United Kingdom, America and even Cameroun, just to escape the nightmare that Nigeria’s tertiary education has become.
It is often forgotten by the authorities that the universities, polytechnics, technical colleges and colleges of education are parts of the whole system. None can truly replace the other. None is less important. Each has its unique contribution to national development.
The cases of the academic unions are not trivial. Each has a catalogue of grievances. ASUP, for instance, wants amongst others the establishment of a National Polytechnics Commission; the Constitution of Governing Councils for Federal Polytechnics and Colleges of Education; the release of White Paper on the Visitations to Federal Polytechnics, and the commencement of the renegotiation of the FGN/ASUP Agreement. The union also wants the payment of the workers’ salary arrears on the Consolidated Tertiary Institutions Salary Structure (CONTISS 15), to the tune of N40 billion.
We wonder why it is difficult for the government to address these issues. If governing councils have been useful in universities, why do we need a strike to get the minister to set them up in polytechnics?
Why on earth does a government sponsor a visitation panel and fail to take decisions on its findings? If the polytechnics and colleges of education look decrepit, why delay the NEEDS Assessment Exercise?
There is already an agreement on the Consolidated Tertiary Institutions Salary Structure (CONTISS). The unions are merely aggrieved over the modalities and arrears of payment. Why can’t such details be settled?
What is so difficult about setting up a national polytechnic commission? Issues like the tenure of rectors, peculiar and responsibility allowance, CONTISS migration and non-accreditation of programmes are issues senior officials should be able to thrash out.
We urge all the parties to be considerate knowing what students and parents have gone through in the last nine months. We hope the new minister will use his current good relations with the lecturers to see that the strikes are not just suspended, but called off.
source: http://sunnewsonline.com/new/?p=72507
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