ABUJA—
THE Federal Government and the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, will
meet today on the ongoing strike embarked upon by university lecturers over the
non- implementation of the 2009 FG/ASUU agreement.
This came
against the backdrop of Minister of Labour and Productivity, Chief Emeka Wogu’s
denial of a newspaper report that the Federal Government agreement with ASUU
could not work.
The
minister said he never made such a statement and that he only appealed to the
union to return to the classrooms while negotiations continued.
Last
week, the two opposing sides had met with the Senate and House of
Representatives Joint Committee on Education to find a solution to the crisis,
so students could go back to school, but the meeting ended in deadlock and the
two groups were told to go back and review their positions to come back on a
latter date.
But the
Minister of Education, Professor Ruqayyatu Rufa’I, while fielding questions
from newsmen, yesterday, disclosed that the Federal Government had no other
option than to meet with the union to resolve the crisis, so students can
return to school.
Prof.
Rufa’I said: “Government has no option but to make efforts to
resolve ASUU crisis. Mr. President is concerned, everybody is concerned,
definitely, efforts will have to be made to have students back in classrooms.
“So we
are pleading with our colleagues in ASUU to call off the strike but we are
meeting with them, we are meeting tomorrow (today).
President
of Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, Dr. Nasir Fagge, has said
Nigeria’s economy had been taken over by Chinese as leaders in Nigeria have
refused to provide quality education to the people, while the Chinese
government trained its people in all sectors with the necessary facilities.
Dr. Fagge
in an interview with Vanguard said Nigeria’s economy will continue to dwindle
except leaders of the country provided universities with adequate facilities to
give qualitative education to the youths.
He said:
“The thing about it is that, if other countries are investing about 28-30 per
cent of their annual budget in education, typically Ghana, even this year,
Ghana has committed 28 per cent of its total budget to education, if they can
do it, why not Nigeria.
“Is it
because we are under the dictates of IMF and World Bank, don’t we want to do
what is right, must our children continue to go to Ghanaian university for
education, must our people be leaving our country, be brain-drained to other
countries to go and develop their economies, must we continue this way”?
“Even
now, what is happening is that the Chinese have taken over our economy simply
because they have trained their people, they have educated their people and
their people can compete any where in the World that is why our President is
going to China to go and sign MoU (Memorandum of Understanding).
“Why cant
we do the same, why cant we train our people and give them quality education so
that we will also be exporting them to go and carry out assignments in other
countries and then bring foreign exchange for our country and then we will not
need to be importing people to come and do some sundry projects in our country.
“Most of
the key contracts now are being forwarded to Chinese companies; all our
companies are down simply because we have not paid high premium to our education
sector that is what we are saying. Are we happy with what we are producing as
graduates? We are not that is what we are crying out for.
“Let
people understand that it is the pride of an intellectual to produce a well
rounded intellectual who is even better than himself, but that is not what we
are having. We are having people because we don’t have the facilities to give
them state of-the-art training and we are crying out and people are telling us
all sorts of things.”
ASUU
president, who expressed optimism that the agreement the union entered into
with the federal government would be implemented, also decried the moving in
droves of Nigerian students to Ghana, since he country paid more attention to
the education sector.
“This
thing that they are saying agreement cannot be implemented, we have heard it
before. Prof. Ben Nwabueze was always in the media when he was the Minister of
Education saying that it was an agreement of imperfect obligation,” he said.
source-vanguard
