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FG Reacts As ASUU Threatens Nationwide Strike by Wisdomkosi(m): 11:07am On May 16 |
recent strike threat. Politics Nigeria reports that ASUU had issued a two-week ultimatum to the government to reconstitute the governing councils of public universities. Addressing journalists in Abuja, acting Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC), Chris Maiyaki, said that the federal government was working to reconstitute the governing councils of universities. Mayaki noted that the minister of education, Prof Tahir Mamman, had put in place a panel to work on the list. He maintained that the councils would be inaugurated once the list was consummated. Mayaki said: “To reconstitute the councils of 61 universities is not a small feat. The government is working to ensure that people who are qualified and with the right pedigree are put in those councils so that they can deliver on Mr. President’s Renewed Hope Agenda. We know ASUU is a body of academics and are concerned about the welfare of their members and the activities in universities but we want them to be patient with the government during this period.” Speaking on the number of universities in the country, the NUC boss said the commission was committed to expanding access to higher education. “And for this, the current 272 universities in the NUS are not sufficient to accommodate the ever-growing demand for university education by Nigerian youths. “Each year, Nigerian universities receive close to two million applications, only a small fraction of them are admitted. That is why there is a need for Nigeria to continue to increase access by establishing more universities to meet the demand for quality education in the country,” Maiyaki said On the initiatives put in place by NUC to boost the nation’s university system, he said the NUC had identified strategic priorities that encompass curriculum development, quality assurance, research and innovation, infrastructure development, and internationalisation, among others. “To encourage partnerships with industry and promote blended learning, the NUC carried out an extensive review of university curricula from the Benchmark Minimum Academic Standard to the Core Curriculum Minimum Academic Standards, which reflect the aspirations of Nigeria to attain a knowledge economy, driven by the 4 Industrial Revolution, known as 4IR, and the 21-century skills. “The CCMAS features an expansion of academic disciplines from 14 to 17. The implementation of the new curricula came into effect in September 2023 for the 2023/2024 academic session. “The implementation framework of the CCMAS makes provision for the training of staff in student-centred tuition-delivery capabilities and development of textual materials to enhance teaching and learning. “Open and Distance Learning Guidelines In a bid to assure quality in the regulation of the NUS, the Commission developed guidelines to provide a framework for the orderly adoption, integration and mainstreaming of e-learning into the conventional face-to-face modes of teaching and learning in Nigerian Universities, among other objectives. “This initiative was needed to assure quality in the delivery of university education, via the Open and Distance Education mode, and keep pace with contemporary global best practices. The Commission produced the following guidelines, as part of the efforts to broaden open and distance learning in the Nigerian University System,“ he said. Source : https://politicsnigeria.com/fg-reacts-as-ASUU-threatens-nationwide-strike/
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Re: FG Reacts As ASUU Threatens Nationwide Strike by helinues: 11:08am On May 16 |
ASUU are lecturers who never ready to work but want to be collecting salary I doubt if there is any union across the world who go on strike the way ASUU do in Nigeria The unserious lecturers Wondering why the person below me deliberately ignored the ASUU striking attitude |
Re: FG Reacts As ASUU Threatens Nationwide Strike by Franklyspeakin: 11:09am On May 16 |
the person above me is bereft of information. your govt is not straight forward. go and read the memo why ASUU wants to go on strike girst 2 Likes 2 Shares |
Re: FG Reacts As ASUU Threatens Nationwide Strike by OgbeniOja1: 11:10am On May 16 |
ACADEMIC STAFF UNION OF UNIVERSITIES (ASUU) TEXT OF THE PRESS CONFERENCE OF THE ACADEMIC STAFF UNION OF UNIVERSITIES (ASUU) HELD AT THE END OF THE NATIONAL EXECUTIVE COUNCIL (NEC) MEETING HELD AT THE OBAFEMI AWOLOWO UNIVERSITY, ILEIFE, OSUN STATE, 11TH-12TH MAY, 2024 I. PROTOCOLS II. INTRODUCTION Comrades and compatriots of the Press, The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) held its National Executive Council (NEC) meeting at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, between Saturday 11th and Sunday 12th May, 2024. At the meeting, the union undertook a dispassionate and comprehensive review of the status of its engagements with Federal and State Governments on how to reposition Nigeria’s public universities for global reckoning and competitiveness. The meeting also took a critical look at the worsening living and working conditions in our universities and the nation at large. The meeting received alarming reports on the failed promises of the Federal and State governments towards addressing the lingering issues that forced the union to embark on the nationwide strike action of February–October 2022. NEC sadly noted that there are no serious efforts to redress the ugly situation. Reports available to NEC indicate that an increasing number of Nigerian academics died while thousands of others are nursing life-threatening ailments occasioned by work-related stress, absolute pauperization, and multidimensional insecurity. ASUU calls this press conference to intimate members of the fourth estate of the realm and indeed all Nigerians of the grim situation our universities have been grappling with since Dr. Chris Ngige and his collaborators truncated over five years of government’s engagements with ASUU at the point of signing a negotiated agreement in 2021. III. Renegotiation of FGN/ASUU 2009 Agreement As our union has consistently stated, salary awards are no substitutes to a negotiated Agreement. Each negotiated Agreement between the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) and ASUU is a comprehensive package that captures not the just salary component but also the requirements for benchmarking a competitive university system designed for addressing the developmental challenges of Nigeria. ASUU’s demand for negotiated salaries and other conditions of service is anchored on the International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) Convention No. 98 which underscores the principle of collective bargaining. The last FGN/ASUU Agreement was in 2009. Consequent upon the union’s advocacy spanning almost one decade, our union went into the renegotiation with the FGN in 2017. We started with the Wale Babalakin-led Joint Renegotiation Committee. Emeritus Prof Munzali Jibril took over when negotiation broke down owing to Dr. Babalakin’s highhandedness and fixation to unworkable anti-worker ideas as terms of agreement. Also, at some point, the Federal Government dropped Prof. Jibril and directed Late Emeritus Prof. Nimi Biggs to take over the negotiation. A draft Agreement was reached with the Professor Briggs-led Committee in 2021. Unfortunately, agents of the Buhari government refused to approve of the draft Agreement for reasons best known to them! Compatriots of the Press would recall the infamous role played by the then Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige, in truncating the successful conclusion of the FGN-ASUU renegotiation process that had lasted for more than four years. The reviewed agreement with the Briggs-led government team has remained in its draft form from 2021 till date. One consequence of this anti-labour stance is the preventable loss of tested Nigerian scholars to universities elsewhere in Africa and all over the world where their expertise is better appreciated. Even with the paltry salary award, the current take-home pay of a professor at bar is about $500/month! In the face of a heightened tax regime, the what a professor at bar earns is about $400 per month which is a scandalous under-valuation of the scholars It is therefore not surprising that the Nigerian University System is continuing to sink deeper and deeper into crisis of underdevelopment. The symptoms of this festering crisis are there for all to see: low academic staff morale, widespread discontent among staff and students, fast diminishing sense of patriotism manifesting in the Japa syndrome, and many more! For the umpteenth time, ASUU calls on the President Tinubuled administration to immediately set in motion the process leading to the review and signing of the Nimi Briggs-led renegotiated draft agreement as a mark of goodwill and assured hope for Nigeria’s public universities. Nigerian academics are tired of platitudes laced with disdain for intellectuals; only concrete steps to restore their eroded dignity and degraded lives can guarantee lasting peace on our campuses. IV. Governing Councils in Public Universities NEC observed with dismay the continued erosion of autonomy of public universities, contrary to the provisions of the Universities Miscellaneous Act (1993, 2012). The illegal dissolution of Governing Councils by the Tinubu Government and many State Governments has paved way for all manner of illegalities in the Nigerian University System. University administrations now place advertisements for the appointment of Vice-Chancellor without authorization from the appropriate quarters – the Governing Councils. Outgoing Vice-Chancellors, working in cahoots with the Federal and State Ministries of Education, are illegally running the universities on a daily basis. They routinely usurp the powers of Governing Councils to recruit and discipline staff as well as manage university finances in manners bereft of transparency and accountability. It is therefore stating the obvious to say that these and sundry activities that run contrary to the extant laws are compounding cases of corruption in our universities. ASUU condemns these anomalies in strong terms and calls on the Federal Government and the equally affected State Governments to respect the Laws establishing their universities. Universities are supposed to be the bastion of democratic ethos and practices. We cannot entrench sustainable democratic culture in Nigeria if universities are run by the whims and caprices of individuals no matter how knowledgeable or powerful. We therefore restate our demand for reinstating Governing Councils whose tenures are yet to lapse and reconstitute those whose tenures had lapsed so that our universities can run in accordance with their Laws. ASUU shall do all within its powers to ensure that the dignity of the academia is fully restored in line with practices obtainable in forward-looking climes. So, Nigerians should hold the Federal and State Governments responsible if the matter of governing councils is allowed to snowball into an avoidable industrial crisis. V. Unending Grip of the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System Compatriots of the Press, it is now public knowledge that IPPIS is a fraudulent platform that inflicted unprecedented hardship on Nigerian academics and corruptly distorted university operations with respect to the payroll management. More importantly, ASUU has consistently rejected IPPIS because it grossly violates the autonomy of our universities. Unfortunately, we are worried that the grip of IPPIS on the universities is far from being eased more than four months after the government mooted the idea of exiting universities and other tertiary institutions from the discredited payment platform. As at today, the salaries of our members are still whimsically withheld just as third-party deductions such as cooperative contributions, pension deductions and union check-off dues are not released. The platform, with all its encumbrances, is used to pay our members under the disguise of the “New IPPIS” contrary to the understanding reached at the 11th January, 2024 stakeholders’ meeting held at the National Universities Commission (NUC). ASUU’s position remains unchanged: Government should revert to quarterly releases of university funds to enable the institutions design and implement their salary payment plans under the supervision of their Governing Councils. This is the touchstone of a truly autonomous university system as experienced in Nigerian universities of the 1960s and 1970s. In the interest of industrial harmony, government should direct the immediate release of all outstanding deductions, unpaid promotion arrears and salaries of university academics which were unjustly withheld by the corruption-ridden IPPIS regime.VI. Core Curriculum Minimum Academic Standard NEC received reports that, despite its earlier rejection of the NUC-imposed Core Curriculum Minimum Academic Standard (CCMAS), the Commission is unrelenting in enforcing its implementation with effect from current academic session. Almost all universities are being burdened with funding resource verification for migrating from the erstwhile Basic Minimum Academic Standard (BMAS) to the new academic benchmark. ASUU considers these developments as infractions that are unhealthy for the Nigerian University System. University senates are the authorities recognized by university laws to initiate academic programmes and award degrees, diplomas and certificates in same. The regulatory function of the NUC is mainly to ensure that universities operate according to their laws, rules and regulations, not to breath down the necks of universities. Once again, ASUU calls on the NUC to join forces with the union to address the challenges of underfunding, understaffing, academic staff turnover, and other pressing problems affecting quality teaching, learning, research and community service in our universities. VII. Proliferation of Universities Our dear compatriots, as you are possibly aware, the matter of proliferation of universities was one of the issues that led to the series of strike actions between 2020 and 2022.The union demanded and still demands that the 2020 ASUU-FGN Memorandum of Action (MoA) which stressed the need to review the NUC Act to make it more potent in arresting the reckless and excessive establishment of universities be fully implemented. During the lifetime of the last legislative session, a joint committee of ASUU and NUC submitted a draft bill to the National Assembly on this matter. However, that bill did not see the light of the day. The fallout from that is the reckless manner by which both the Federal and State governments have continued to create universities without preparations for their funding. This recently came to a worrisome height when a sitting Governor boastfully declared that he would establish ten universities in his State before the end of his tenure! Nigeria boasts of over 170 universities comprising 79 that are owned by individuals and private organizations while 43 and 48 belong to the Federal and State governments respectively. However, about 95% of the students are still found in public universities which underscores the imperative of prioritizing the federal and state universities in Nigeria. Rather than supporting our advocacy for adequate funding of public universities, each Senator is surreptitiously pushing for the establishment of a university as part of their constituency projects while Visitors to State Universities who could not fund existing universities are creating two or more purely for electoral gains. This trend has put much stress on the intervention funds of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) which are diverted to establish new universities contrary to the Fund’s Act. ASUU shall explore all legal means to resist the pervasive moves by politicians to keep proliferating crisis centres for the children of the poor in the name of universities. We urge the President Tinubu-led administration to refrain from further proliferation of universities and refocus the system. What we need are universities that are adequately empowered to address the challenges confronting Nigeria and stand should-to-shoulder with their peers elsewhere in the world and mushroom glorified high schools. VIII. Funding of Universities Over the years, ASUU’s engagements with successive governments on funding of public universities have been predicated on scientifically established benchmark of annual budgetary requirements for education. Lately, the United Nations Fund for Population Activities’ (UNFPA) specification of 15%-20% educational budget for underdeveloped countries like Nigeria has been advocated by our union. However, there was no year in the last 10 years when allocation to education in the national budget was more above 10%. The average has hovered between 5% and 6%. ASUU decries the deliberate and continued underfunding of State and Federal universities because it degrades the capacity of the institutions and further under-develops Nigeria. 1 Like 1 Share |
Re: FG Reacts As ASUU Threatens Nationwide Strike by Jostoman: 11:31am On May 16 |
helinues:Always on the side of your wicked and heartless government. |
Re: FG Reacts As ASUU Threatens Nationwide Strike by Ttipsy(f): 11:46am On May 16 |
Jostoman:you think everyone is as reasonable as you are? 1 Like |
Re: FG Reacts As ASUU Threatens Nationwide Strike by helinues: 11:56am On May 16 |
Jostoman: Would something terrible happen to you if you make your comments and Waka? |
Re: FG Reacts As ASUU Threatens Nationwide Strike by slivertongue: 12:12pm On May 16 |
FG should do the needful enough of promise and fail 1 Like 1 Share |
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