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.

The Supervising Minister of Education, Barr. Ezenwo Nyesom Wike, yesterday, appealed to Academic Staff Union of Polythecnics, ASUP and College of Education Academic Staff Union, COEASU, to call off their on-going strikes in the interest of the nation.

Wike made the appeal in a statement released to journalists in Abuja, by his Special Assistant (Media), Mr. Simeon Nwakaudu.

The minister said he had led negotiations with ASUP and COEASU leaderships to resolve the on-going strike on several occasions and hoped that the two unions would respond positively to the latest efforts of the Federal Government and call of their strikes.

He said: “These negotiations has led to the Federal Government meeting about 90 per cent of the demands of the unions.

”Only one principal demand is yet to be finalised, but the Federal Government has placed before the two unions the payment of arrears of CONTISS 15 put at over N40billion for the two unions. The Federal Government has proposed two instalmental payments, which the unions rejected.”

He said further negotiations were held last week, adding that there was hope that in the coming days, the outstanding issues would be resolved.

The minister said the Federal Government had worked round the clock to resolve all issues presented by ASUP and COEASU.

“It is the hope of Nigerians that the associations will reciprocate by calling off their strikes in the coming days,” he said.

It would be recalled the Federal Government, through the Federal Ministry of Education, set up the Needs Assessment Committees for Polytechnics and Colleges of Education, and the two committees are in the process of concluding their reports.

The World Health Organization wants you to stop eating so much sugar.

In a drafted guideline proposal, WHO is encouraging people to consume less than 5% of their total daily calories from sugars. The organization’s current guidelines, published in 2002, recommend eating less than 10% of your total daily calories from sugars.

Our sweet tooth increased 39% between 1950 and 2000, according to the USDA with the average American now consuming about three pounds of sugar each week.

“There is increasing concern that consumption of free sugars, particularly in the form of sugar-sweetened beverages, may result in … an increase in total caloric intake, leading to an unhealthy diet, weight gain and increased risk of noncommunicable diseases,” WHO said in a statement.

Of particular concern, WHO said, is the role sugar plays in causing dental diseases worldwide.

For an adult at a normal body mass index, or BMI, eating 5% would be around 25 grams of sugar — or six teaspoons. That’s less than is typically found in a single can of regular soda, which contains about 40 grams of sugar.

To find the amount of calories from sugar in a product, multiply the grams by 4. For example, a product containing 15 grams of sugar has 60 calories from sugar per serving, according to the American Heart Association. If you eat 2,000 calories a day, that’s 3%.

WHO’s proposed guidelines apply to sugars added to foods by manufacturers, as well as those found naturally in honey, syrups, fruit juices and fruit concentrates. They do not apply to those found in fresh produce.

“Much of the sugars consumed today are ‘hidden’ in processed foods that are not usually seen as sweets,” the WHO website states.

Did you know sugar is often added to your frozen pizza? How about your bread, soup, yogurt and mayonnaise? As consumers became more concerned about the amount of fat in their food, manufacturers went out of their way to make low-fat items — often substituting sugar to preserve the taste.

Choosing foods with fewer added sugars at the grocery story may soon get a little easier. The Food and Drug Administration has proposed several changes to the nutrition labels you see on packaged foods and beverages. The proposed labels would also note how much added sugar is in a product. Right now, it’s hard to know what is naturally occurring sugar and what has been added by the manufacturer.

The WHO guidelines will be open for public comment until March 31.
Then WHO will finalize and publish its recommendations.

By Jacque Wilson,
CNN

Reconciling the wish to prioritise societal and development goals with growing pressures to perform on other core missions has emerged as a major dilemma for universities in “The World Beyond 2015”, a campaign of the Association of Commonwealth Universities to raise awareness of why and how higher education should respond to global challenges.

Academics and institutions from around the world have made submissions to the campaign, which has the subtitle “Is higher education ready?”

This is a key question for a sector that was marginalised in the Millennium Development Goals, or MDGs, and which has been vigorously arguing that it has an essential role to play in helping to achieve international development goals.

If higher education finds recognition in new targets being formulated during the course of this year to replace the expiring MDGs – either as a goal in its own right, or via explicit recognition that the sector is intrinsic to all new goals – it had better be prepared.

The Association of Commonwealth Universities, or ACU, which represents 500 member universities in countries across the Commonwealth, believed it was imperative for higher education to begin considering the implications of the new international agenda and how institutions could respond to the new goals as they emerged.

Work needed

Dr John Kirkland, deputy secretary general of the ACU, said considerable damage had been done to higher education 15 years ago, when the international development community prioritised other areas of education, especially primary education.

“For a while, in many parts of the world, higher education went into serious decline,” he told University World News. “Now, having established itself as a genuine development activity, higher education wants this to be recognised in any successor to the MDG goals.

“It is crucial that a holistic approach is taken.”

Six questions were devised to frame the debate while new international goals were being decided, said Kirkland, and a call was put out for individuals and institutions to contribute to the debate through submissions.

As expected, most submissions have been from people already active in the area. But “The World Beyond 2015. Is higher education?” is not just about illustrating how universities are currently supporting development, and championing their cause.

“One could have a huge campaign that just gets more examples of what universities are doing. But we don’t want the campaign to be just about that. We also want it to be an opportunity for universities to look at themselves.

“It is a challenge to universities regarding whether their systems are ready for mass higher education, and regarding their research and community engagement systems in a world in which higher education plays a leading role in development activity,” Kirkland said.

“What we are finding is that universities, particularly in developing countries, are still very much devising systems to support a lot of development-oriented activities.” This despite the fact that community engagement and extension work – for instance in agriculture – had been in the missions of African universities longer than for UK universities.

Further, Kirkland told University World News: “Although universities speak about the ‘third strand’, in practice this work still tends to be at the periphery.

“A big question emerging is whether one should centralise that. And what are the incentives to take part? What is the equivalent of publications in research? Is it supported by a central office and highlighted in annual reports?

“What we are finding in all countries is a continuing dilemma in how far to prioritise these aspects.”

Universities everywhere were under huge pressure, Kirkland continued. “In the past 20 years universities have had to get used to constraints on the time of their staff – an environment in which time has real opportunity cost.

“If universities want to prioritise societal and development goals, we have to find some way of reconciling this with other core activities. With a finite amount of time and allocation, we have to make sure that development goals are embedded in the university.

“This is a challenge for universities as much as it is for outside organisations.”

The six questions, and some answers

A document recently produced by the ACU looked at submissions so far in relation to the six questions that that frame “The World Beyond 2015” campaign.

1- Why does the Post-2015 agenda matter for higher education?
The ACU quotes Ian Thornton, deputy director of the UK Collaborative on Development Sciences, thus: “The MDGs have been criticised for being an international framework written by a select few in a New York basement.

“Millions of dollars and unthinkable man-hours have gone into making the post-2015 process globally consultative. Higher education institutions now have a fantastic opportunity and responsibility to continue this open, discursive agenda wherever they are.”

2- How are universities already addressing local, national and international issues?
A range of case studies from numerous countries highlight the impact of universities on local communities and beyond – such as Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology’s user-friendly water filter and the Group of Eight universities in Australia’s involvement in the global fight against malaria.

3- How can universities prepare to respond to the Post-2015 agenda?
Submissions, the ACU document says, point to numerous important issues for universities and those who fund and support them.

“Universities need to prepare their students – through, for example, broader science training and enhancing graduate employability – as well as reform themselves, by boosting the participation of women in senior roles and refocusing on their historic mission to serve the world, despite changing societal demands.”

4- What partnerships should universities establish to achieve their objectives?
The responses to the campaign so far have highlighted the need for a range of partners – such as business, civil society, NGOs and other universities – to leverage research for maximum impact.

“Successful partnerships increase the impact of research and foster productive links with communities and policy-makers. They also have a role to play in supporting students, through enhancing teaching and learning and improving employability,” says the ACU.

It quotes Chris Roche, of La Trobe University in Australia, as saying: “If you are interested in these kinds of issues, working on your own, even if you are a large cashed-up university, is simply not going to work.”

5- How can universities champion their contributions to wider society?
Universities need to engage their publics, and communication is key. Paul Geswindt, of Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in South Africa, said: “There are many stories to be told not just about teaching, research and engagement but also students and staff and the communities and issues they represent.”

6- How relevant and realistic are the Post-2015 goals likely to be?
Five ‘transformative shifts’ identified by the United Nations High-Level Panel “have added a new dimension to the post-2015 process”, according to the ACU – “and the targets themselves may look very different to the MDGs”.

Within the ‘illustrative goals’ already developed, and the ‘transformative shifts’, the ACU is asking universities what specific interventions and targets higher education can deliver, and what support universities need in order to deliver them.

The role of universities

In a background paper, the ACU points out that there is plenty of evidence of universities and research institutions playing “a huge role in development terms” as agents to address international development goals.

“The view from the Commonwealth Secretariat is that higher education is inextricably connected to prospects for development, through the teaching, research and engagement capacities intrinsic to the university system.”

“The connection between universities’ capacity to effect social change and the specific targets set out by the UN in 2000 has been apparent to global leaders in the higher education sector for some time.”

While some were advocating higher education as a discrete goal, to which funds could be directed for specific support, others were pushing for the recognition that higher education is intrinsic to all new goals.

“The role of the Beyond 2015 campaign is not to declare the best approach, but instead to convene leading lights and active members of the higher education community in the discussion, to better incorporate the experiences of the past decade in informing progress towards the next.”

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