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Tag: ASUP strike

  • ASUP strike grounds academic activities in Kastina’s polytechnics

    ASUP strike grounds academic activities in Kastina’s polytechnics

    The two-week warning strike declared by the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP) entered its final phase this week, severely disrupting academic activities across federal and state polytechnics. 

    Campuses visited by The Nation on Monday were notably affected, with the strike set to continue for the full two-week duration.

    ASUP is demanding that the government address several critical issues, including violations of the Federal Polytechnics Act, the non-review of the contentious “Schemes of Service for Polytechnics and Conditions of Service” document, and the non-release of the 2023 NEEDS Assessment intervention funds.

    Additional concerns include the usurpation of the Academic Board’s role by the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) in the admission of Higher National Diploma (HND) candidates, and the non-inclusion of members’ Peculiar Academic Allowance in the planned post-IPPIS era.

    Nasir Gidado Hassan, ASUP chairman for Hassan Usman Katsina Polytechnic (HUKP), confirmed to The Nation that the union would not call off the strike until all their demands were fully met. 

    He added that the decision to embark on the strike followed a directive from the national executive, with a majority vote in support of the action at the state union level before its commencement.

    He said: ‘’We already had a meeting on the strike with the governing council of the polytechnic led by Hajia Indo Mohammed where they pleaded we suspend the strike for the sake of the students but we refused. 

    Read Also: ASUP mobilise for strike as ultimatum expires

    ‘’They even promised to implement one of our demands and we said no until all the demands were met.”

    When The Nation visited Daura Federal Poly the situation was the same, the institution was deserted. 

    Comrade Mansur Safyanu, ASUP  Chairman Federal Poly Daura branch said that the union has already submitted its demand letter to the governing council of the Polytechnic and are awaiting their response also disclosed that their nest line of action will be determined by the national executive council meeting of of ASUP

    Dr Abdulazeez Ibrahim Badaru ,the Zonal A Coordinator of A SUP  was also in Daura to monitor compliance  by union members. 

  • ASUP strike grounds businesses in Bauchi poly village

    Economic activities have been grounded at Gwallameji, the host community of Federal Polytechnic Bauchi, as the indefinite strike by the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics entered its ninth month.

    A correspondent of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), who visited the community on Thursday, observed that most shops had closed down due to lack of patronage.

    Ahaji Sani Mohammed, the village head of Gwallameji, told NAN that the strike had paralysed businesses in the community, forcing many traders out of business.

    He noted that the students alone constituted about 90 per cent of their customers.

    “Everybody is affected, from shop owners, petty traders, artisans, hawkers, transport workers, landlords, you name them.

    “This has brought untold hardship to our people, whose businesses rely solely on the students,’’ he said.

    Malam Shehu Musa, the representative of the village head in the local market, acknowledged the problem, saying more than 30 traders had closed down their shops.

    He said if the strike was not immediately called off, many traders in the community would be forced to relocate to other areas.

    One of the traders, Jibrin Sumaila, who was selling provisions, drinks and snacks, told NAN that his daily turnover had dropped from N200,000 to N30,000.

    He said that due to low patronage he had to shut down his other shop located inside the school.

    “The students made up 90 per cent of our customer base,’’ Sumaila said.

    “These students have boyfriends, girlfriends as well as relations who visit them and make huge purchases for them on daily bases.

    “Sadly, since the commencement of the strike my sales have drastically dropped from N200, 000 to barely N30, 000 daily.

    “This has forced me to lay off two sales girls that I employed to assist me because of the volume of customers at my shop.

    “I had to lay them off since I can no longer afford to pay them,’’ he explained.

    He appealed to Federal Government and ASUP to resolve their differences so that students would return to school to save their business from total collapse.

    Similarly, Lukman Busari, who owned a business centre, Leaf-Green Computers, said he made up to N10,000 daily, but could barely make N800 since the commencement of the strike.

    “I am into typing, binding, photocopy, passport photographs and the likes. My customers therefore are mainly students.

    “When students are around there is market, but when they are not around there is completely no market.

    “I make up to N10, 000 daily, but now I barely make up to N800 and I had to buy fuel and stationery. “Currently I barely make enough to feed my family,’’ he said.

    Mr Bature Musa, the owner of BM Communications, who was dealing with airtime recharge cards and charging of cell-phone batteries, said the strike affected him both as a businessman and as a student.

    He said that he was selling the N400 and N200 airtime recharge cards, noting that because of the strike, not many people were even asking for the N100 airtime.

    Musa said that the battery recharging aspect of the business had completely gone.

    “I usually made up to N2, 000 daily, charging phone batteries, but the strike has robbed me of that means.

    “That part of the business is no longer fetching me anything,’’ he said.

    Another trader, Auwal Mohammed, who was selling tomatoes and other vegetables, said his daily turnover had dropped from N17, 000 to N3, 000.

    “I sold out three to four baskets of tomatoes daily when students are around, but now it takes me four to five days to finish just a basket, that is if I am lucky, and you know the perishable nature of vegetables.

    “Beside vegetables, I also sell yam and potatoes, but I had to stop because there is no patronage,’’ he said.

    Mrs Stella Offor, a petty trader selling food stuffs, also said her daily turnover was N20, 000 but had dropped to N4, 000.

    “This lingering strike by the academic staff of the polytechnic is worrisome, because whenever students are not in school there is no market and they have been away for nine months now.

    “Sometimes I bought things to re-sell but they will be in the shop growing dust and we end up consuming them at home.

    “The federal government should please do something to save our business from folding up completely,’’ she said.

  • The lingering ASUP strike

    SIR: The lingering strike of the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP) has taken an unnecessarily long period. When the Academic Staff of Union of Universities (ASUU) was on strike, it was as though the whole of Nigerian students or parents would not sleep. Religious leaders, groups and individuals of influence had a lot to say about it as they pleaded with the government and ASUU to resolve their differences. It is not same with ASUP strike. Isn’t it because we place more emphasis on universities than their polytechnic counterparts?

    In Nigeria, education, especially tertiary education, has ceased to be a right long ago; it is a privilege. To be a university or polytechnic student is a thing of chance. There are those who are in not in any and there are many too who pursued university admission fervently but who ended up in polytechnics especially in a Nigeria where we fight for nearly everything. The preference for university graduate as against their polytechnic mates by employers does not help matters either. The dichotomy between a university and polytechnic graduate is an issue the government has not done enough to resolve.

    On the current elongated strike embarked upon by polytechnic teachers, it is regrettable just as it is totally unthinkable for tertiary institutions to be closed down for eight months due to an industrial action linked to government’s neglect.

    The most affected group in any industrial action affecting tertiary education institutions in Nigeria remains the students. Nigerian students (who are of the voting age) do not however know that there is a lot of power in their hands – particularly in their thumbs. The power they possess goes beyond taking to the streets to protest against unjust government actions and inactions. It goes beyond carrying placards on the street of Lagos or in a remote campus in any part of Nigeria.

    The population of the Nigerian youth is staggering and when it comes to election, they have a big role to play. The youth of today can decide who should be their head through the power of their vote. It is left for them and their parents to decide who leads them come 2015.

    The ASUP strike and the unnecessary dichotomy between the Bachelor of Science and the Higher National Diploma degrees need to be attended to. The employers of labour need to come to the full understanding that in getting the work done, delivery on the job and not paper qualification is what matters. There is hardly anybody who has not had enough of this unnecessary neglect of duties by the government. We need a change.

    • Anani Sunday,

    Lagos.

  • ASUP strike

    ASUP strike

    With the strike by the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP) now over seven months old, it is difficult for the Federal Government to disprove the notion that it does not care about polytechnic education. ASUP had gone on strike on April 17, 2013, more than two months before the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) began its strike. It suspended the strike on July 17, 2013.

    The strike was to press home a 12-point demand, but the four major ones include: (1) that government should inject N20.8billion, for a start, into polytechnic education; (2) bridge the gap between the university graduates and those from the polytechnics; (3) constitute a need assessment committee for polytechnic education and (4) address the poor state of state-owned polytechnics

    Government’s nonchalant attitude to the strike is reflected in its silence on it, in the hope, perhaps, that the polytechnic lecturers will return to classes when they become strike-weary. ASUP national president, Chibuzo Asomuhga, is pained, and rightly so, that “while the government intervened in other sectors that went on strike or threatened to go on strike, it had ignored the nation’s call for an end to the ongoing strike”.

    While government should not pander to the wishes of just anybody who downs tools for whatever reasons, it should treat every case on its merit. There is no doubt that our polytechnics, just like the universities as well as other levels of education in the country are in crisis. ASUU, which has just ended a six-month-old strike also did not have it easy with the government. It took a lot of pressuring from the public to get the government to agree to give the universities some money.

    Yet, Nigerians see public officials, particularly politicians, living in affluence while the government keeps saying there is no money to fund the major sectors, including the educational sector. It is bad faith for the government to agree to give ASUP N20.8billion to improve the state of polytechnics only to renege, months after the agreement. ASUP should however realise that the government is not doing this to it alone; ASUU suffered the same fate in the hands of successive administrations. But the Federal Government will do well to fulfill that aspect of the bargain.

    However, some of the other issues on this matter, like the disparity of staff and graduates of polytechnics cannot be resolved in the media. The Federal Government should set up a committee on why lecturers in polytechnics and colleges of education cannot go beyond senior lecturers while only in the universities can senior lecturers move to Readers/Associate Professors and finally to Professors. On this important issue, some questions need to be raised and answered. Do the differences in qualities and standards, the mode of appointments and promotion suggest the difference in the qualities of academic staff in the universities and polytechnics and the award of university degrees and polytechnic diplomas? Eventually the matter may be resolved by the requirements for admission (some polytechnics admit candidates with three credits), etc.

    The Federal Government cannot afford to be partial in matters of educational policy. It should define the roles of each educational institution in Nigeria. Let the government also state the minimum qualifications for teaching in each of these institutions, and the level of research and development associated with these requirements. This will solve the problem of parity or disparity in the higher institutions as anybody will be free to move from one institution to another according to his/her qualifications and need, research potentials and expected contributions to national development.

    All said, for a country that is thirsty for technological development, we cannot afford to ignore the polytechnics.

  • Govt should end ASUU, ASUP strike

    Govt should end ASUU, ASUP strike

    SIR: The essence of education to the growth and development of any nation cannot be over emphasized. Education is so crucial to economic growth that any nation that genuinely hopes to develop must vehemently andconsistently appropriate a large chunk of its budget to developing its educational sector. Without education, no nation would attain meaningful economic and socio-political development.

    Two months into the nationwide strike embarked upon by the Academic Union of Polytechnics (ASUP) the Academic Union of Universities (ASUU) has now embarked on an indefinite strike over the failure of the Federal Government to implement a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on ‘‘EARN’’ allowance of N12,500 per month.

    The issue here is why would government enter into agreements and renege on such agreements? It beats one’s imagination that matters regarding education are handled with utmost levity by the government. There is no equality in a system where a local government councilor earns three or four times the salary of a university lecturer. Any system that relegates teachers’ welfare to the background will definitely produce half-baked graduates and graduates who cannot prove their mettle in the labour market. Why would government wait until lecturers embark on strike before taking action? Does it mean that strike action is the only language the Nigerian government understands? When are we going to get to a time when lecturers will no longer embark on strikes in Nigeria?

    With the current insecurity in Nigeria, why would government allow our tertiary institution students to waste their talents at home or roam the streets when they can be meaningfully engaged in the classrooms? Some of these students who are now idle hands could be tempted to engage in nefarious activities or join criminal gangs to perpetrate crimes. An idle mind is definitely the devil’s workshop so the government must as a matter of urgency act to ensure it resolves the issues with the polytechnic and university lecturers so that these students can go back to school. The strike actions will not do anyone any good; it will only end up crippling an already ailing education sector.

    We were recently told by the Federal Ministry of Education that only about 500,000 applicants will eventually get admission into our tertiary institutions in 2013 out of about 1.7 million that sat for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) conducted by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) in April. Many eligible applicants are denied admission placement due to shortage of space in our institutions due to the fact that these institutions lack the requisite facilities to accommodate them.

    One of the reasons why the education sector has degenerated to this sorry state is that the government keeps paying lip service to issues concerning education without taking proactive steps to forestall crises. I think declaring a state of emergency in the education sector is long overdue and this should be done to forestall total collapse of the sector. A lot of reforms are urgently required in the educational sector and I believe that the government can do this if it is serious about addressing the problems in the sector. We are a country where so many talented people abound. But one sure way to discover and tap these talents for the benefit of the nation is through sound education for the people.

    The Federal Government should urgently call ASUP and ASUU to a roundtable to iron out the issues with them so that they can call off the strike as soon as possible.It is high time we discouraged strike action as the only tool that can coerce government into action on matters of public concern.

    • Tayo Demola

    Lagos.