Strike: FG, ASUU meet today The Federal Government andthe Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, will meet today on the ongoing strike embarked upon by universitylecturers 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 ofa 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 negotiationscontinued. Last week, the two opposing sides had met with the Senate and House of RepresentativesJoint 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 tobe made to have students back in classrooms. “So we are pleading with our colleagues in ASUU to call off the strike but we are meetingwith 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, whilethe Chinese government trained its people in all sectors with the necessary facilities. Dr. Fagge in an interview withVanguard said Nigeria’s economy will continue to dwindle except leaders of thecountry provided universities with adequate facilities to give qualitative education to the youths. He said: “The thing about it is that, if other countries areinvesting about 28-30 per cent of their annual budget ineducation, 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 WorldBank, 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 Chinesehave taken over our economy simply because theyhave 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 togo 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 alsobe 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, butthat 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 themoving in droves of Nigerianstudents 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 Nwabuezewas always in the media when he was the Minister of Education saying that it was an agreement of imperfect obligation,” he said. -Plateau News Online-
Posted on: Fri, 26 Jul 2013 04:33:00 +0000