NLC President, Abdulwahed Omar, in a statement, titled: Do Not Allow Education Sector To Shut Down, urged the President to confront the issues threatening the Education sector.
The statement reads: “We urge Mr President to muster all the necessary will and skill to confront the issues that threaten this vital sector.
“As President of the country, he has the onerous task of rising up to the challenge of restoring normalcy to the sector, whether the issues are political – as he has made the nation to believe – or are purely industrial.”
The umbrella labour union noted that the threat of a shutdown deserved the urgency and mobilisation Dr Jonathan could muster.
The NLC said the challenges in the Education sector were symptomatic of greater ills in the polity.
The congress recalled that the strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), for instance, was in its fourth month and had almost disrupted an academic session with collateral consequences.
It added that the other leading unions in the Education sector – the Non-Academic Staff Union of Academic Institutions (NASU), the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) National Association of Academic Technologies (NAAT) and the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Polytechnics (SSANIP) – have threatened to go on strike in the next few days, except their demands were met.
The NLC president noted that the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) had signalled its readiness to embark on a solidarity strike, if the government failed to resolve, within two weeks, its contentious agreement with ASUU.
The statement reads: “Most of these demands, if not all, are not new, but are subsisting agreements which the government is expected to honour. Some of these agreements border on salaries, which the government has agreed to pay but has elected to observe in the breach instead. For example, the SSANU, whose members are being owed for over three months.
“The avoidable strike by ASUU has caused enough disruption or damage to the sector. The implications for the polity are grave and should be avoided, at least for the sake of our children.
“We also urge Mr President to discountenance the impression that the strikes against his government are politically-motivated, as nothing could be farther from the truth. Those who pursue this line of thinking are those who do not wish Mr President well. Rather than tell him the truth, they prefer to indulge in sycophancy, hypocrisy and boot-licking because it serves their personal motives.”
something should be done on Nigeria education
ReplyDeleteGovernment want to kill education. It baffles me that a lecturer turned president cannot solve problem of education sector that was once his constituency. If GEJ who had passed through the system and known the plight of the people in this sector could turn deaf ear then education is doomed.
ReplyDelete