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The Academic Staff Union of
Polytechnics (ASUP) has revealed
that its ongoing strike is about
several developmental problems
in Nigeria’s polytechnics which
the Minister of Education is
deliberately ignoring.
National President of ASUP,
Chibuso
Asomugha, speaking on Channels
Television’s Sunrise, said that
what the
association has done was to call
the
attention of government to the
deterioration in the polytechnics
and
strengthen the capacity of the
schools
in order to raise the integrity of
the
products of Nigerian
polytechnics.
He said that the main issues they
were
agitating for include
infrastructure,
facilities, school categorization,
payment of lecturers’ arrears,
legal
framework of polytechnics, and
the
integrity of the polytechnic
graduates,
but the Minister of Education has
tried
to narrow all the issues down to
their
financial demands.
Secretary General of ASUP, Usman
Nda-Umar, who was also on the
programme, said that the
decision of
the Minister to ignore other key
issues
was a deliberate action to
blackmail
the association. He revealed that
at
the last meeting held with the
Minister, the association made it
known that they wanted a
discussion
on other issues of concern but
the
Minister said no.
Asomugha also referred to the ill-
fated Immigration recruitment
exercise where it was alleged
that
Polytechnic graduates were
categorised along with
Secondary
School Certificate (SSCE) holders
and
given the same exam, while
university
graduates were given a different
exam; a development he said
was
among the major issues they are
bent
on fighting.
He further revealed that the
Minister
has been a major source of
setback in
the process of resolving the crisis
in
the system. He alleged acts of
highhandedness and refusal to
see
reasons with the association.
Nda-Umar said that the
Government
has shown that it was not
interested
in technical education and for
there to
be a general change in the
perception
of Nigerians about the quality
polytechnic education; the
Government would have to lay
the
example.
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