Barely a week to the general election, educationists on Friday heave a sigh of relief as the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) announced the suspension of its three months old strike.
Florence Obi, former deputy vice chancellor, University of Calabar while commenting on this latest development told BusinessDay that ASUU’s suspension of the strike is heart-warming news coming days before the general election.
Obi observed that the injection of funds into the federal university system is long overdue adding that with the suspension of the strike; it will usher in brighter days for the university system again.
According to her, “It now remains for State Governments to take a cue from the federal example of properly funding their universities”
“University senates should be urged to ensure that minimum academic contact per semester is not shortened with a consequence of depressing quality. Attention should also be paid to transparent and judicious use of the funds allocated to each university”, she added.
Olusola Oyewole, former president, Association of African Universities (AUU) while expressing his thought on the issues surrounding the ASUU strike among other issue says the constant disruption of academic programmes does not speak well of the Nigerian education system across Africa as foreign partners interested in collaborations with Nigeria federal and state universities may be forced to withdraw such partnerships owing to constant strike actions.
According to him, “You may say its ASUU or some people may say its government, I believe it’s all of us. I think it’s high time we avoided strike and move forward as a nation. The strike also affects us as University,
The university don further noted that the drive for Internationalisation have been affected with the instability of the academic calendar in Nigeria.
Meanwhile normal academic activities in Federal and state Universities may not resume till after the 2019 general election scheduled for February 16 despite the suspension of the three months old strike by the hierarchy of the academic staff union of universities. BusinessDay finding has revealed.
Analysts and education watchers assessing the situation, express misgivings about the current situation, observing that even as the hierarchy of ASUU decided to end the strike, no meaningful academic work would be achieved by students or their lecturers, with barely one week to the general election.
They maintained that the three months wasted as a result of the strike have already altered the academic calendar and that it would take at least two weeks for academic functions to normalise which would not happen as a result of the election.
The latest strike action is one in a series of industrial actions undertaken by ASUU to press home their demands for better condition of service. However, these actions over the years have impacted negatively on the academic future of millions of undergraduates.
The decision by the Union to suspend the protracted face off with the Federal government was reached after a marathon meeting held at the Nigeria labour congress Headquarters, Pascal Bafyau house, Abuja.
Announcing the suspension before newsmen ASUU president, Biodun Ogunyemi called on all academic staff in Nigerian Universities to resume full academic activities in their various universities.
Ogunyemi expressed the National executive Council’s appreciation to Nigerian students, parents and all patriotic citizens for their understanding with ASUU over their action in ensuring that Nigerian universities are given proper and due attention by Nigerian government.
In attendance at the meeting, which ran till late in the evening, were all the ASUU branch chairmen and secretaries, the national executive members of the body, coordinators and past leaders, including members from various universities.
He further noted that in line with procedures, the different chapters of ASUU would hold congress meetings on to inform members and managements of the institutions of the latest development.
“We expect the students to resume and expect their members to go back to class immediately after the congress meeting and we expect the government to keep to the terms of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU),” he said.
It will recall that Nigeria’s university lecturers have been on strike since November 5, 2018 to demand full implementation of agreement it reached with the Federal Government on conditions of service for university lecturers, and funding of infrastructural development in Nigerian universities.
KELECHI EWUZIE
