Strike: ASUP accuses FG of abandoning polytechnic education

Strike: ASUP accuses FG of abandoning
polytechnic education
on january 08, 2014 at 4:00 am in news
As strike enters seventh month
BY JOHNBOSCO AGBAKWURU
ABUJA—Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics,
ASUP, has alleged abandonment by the Federal
Government as the strike declared by lecturers in
the sub-sector enters its seventh month.
ASUP had gone on strike April 17, 2013, to press
home demands for government’s proper funding of
polytechnic education as well as address the
disparity between the polytechnics and university
graduates in the country.
ASUP president laments
Speaking in an exclusive interview with Vanguard,
National President of ASUP, Mr. Chibuzor
Asomugha, lamented that the government was
killing polytechnic education in Nigeria as several
meetings held with government to ensure re-
opening of polytechnics yielded no fruits.
Asomugha argued that the lack of interest by
government to implement its promises for
polytechnics to be re-opened was a deliberate ploy
to deny students of Polytechnics access to
education.
Expressing concern that efforts to draw the
attention of the Nigerian public might be given
political colouration and union leaders branded as
working for opposition political parties against the
government, Asomugha appealed to all relevant
stakeholders to intervene on behalf of the poor
students who might not have somebody in
government to speak for them.
Lack of interest from FG
On why government has not shown interest in the
lingering strike, the ASUP boss appealed to relevant
stakeholders to prevail on the government, Minister
of Education, Permanent Secretary and Minister of
Labour to do the needful.
He said: “I am not going to be talking for
government, we have been in this, they have given
us promises, they have not been fulfilling them.
“The promises were simple things, we even had the
understanding where they promised to implement
within one week and it is more than four months
now, everybody should reach government and let
them tell Nigerians what are the problems. I cannot
be speaking for government, what I know is that
government is not doing any thing.
“We met them yesterday (Monday), the same
promises and I don’t know why they find it difficult
to fulfil the promises. Okay tell me yourself, what is
the problem in releasing the White Paper that is
ready? It is the government that should tells us that.
The SGF should tell us why he is withholding the
White Paper.”
Way out of logjam
On the way out of the long strike, he said: “The way
out is that we are still on strike until the members
tell us whatever they decide with the strike.
“Government has been giving assurances in the
past six months, the assurance of government does
not amount to anything, that is why ASUU insisted
on things concrete and people didn’t understand it.
“We agreed with government that they were going
to take up four things out of the 13 that we had
listed. Government has been able to meet one and
half of those issues that we had listed. Even the
NEEDS Assessment government constituted
Committee is not working at the pace it should
work, we are supposed to submit the report in
February, up till now, we have not done much.
Waiting on government’s White Paper
“Government said it was going to release the White
Paper on the visitation to Federal Polytechnics, they
were going to complete the lower cader of CONTISS
16 which was the thing that happened in 2009 and
up till now, it hadn’t been implemented and then,
that they were going to complete the appointment of
six Governing Councils of six Federal Polytechnics
which they have done.
“To constitute the NEEDS Assessment Committee to
do the NEEDS assessments of the Polytechnics,
which they have constituted and the Committee is
more or less not working the way it should work.
These are the four issues that we extracted out of
the 13.
“There is a director in the Ministry of Education who
is the Chairman of the Committee but the problem is
that the Committee complains all the time of lack of
funding from TETFund which is supposed to fund it.”