CHAIRMAN,
Senate Committee on Education, Senator Uche Chukwumerije, on Monday,
said there was hope that the strike embarked upon by university
lecturers would soon come to an end.
Chukwumerije
spoke after the meeting the committee had with Academic Staff Union of
Universities, the Ministry of Education and other stakeholders in the
education sector with a view to ending the strike by the university
lecturers.
He told journalists after the meeting that they made positive progress during the meeting.
He
said, “We all held very cordial discussion and I think we are making
positive progress. There were very positive suggestions. The body
language of everybody seems to suggest that there would soon be solution
to the crisis.”
Asked
if there was any commitment from ASUU to call off the strike,
Chukwumerije said there was no commitment, but expressed hope that the
strike would soon be called off.
“I hope that the strike will soon be called off. I do not know quite frankly when, but I hope it will be soon,” he said.
Although
the meeting was held behind closed doors, our correspondent learnt that
the committee tried to persuade ASUU to call off the strike, since the
National Assembly and the Federal Government were working to meet their
demands.
A
source close to the committee told our correspondent that the committee
told the leadership of the union that it was already working on the
bill to alter the retirement age of lecturers.
He
said the committee promised to quickly pass the new bill, increasing
retirement age from 65 to 70 years for lecturers and professors in
tertiary institutions.
It
also urged ASUU to find ways of improving the internally generated
revenues of the universities to augment what it received from the
Federal Government.
Shortly
before the closed door meeting, Chukwumerije had asked the Federal
Government and ASUU to quickly find an end to the problems in the
universities. He said Nigerians had become disenchanted with ASUU and
the Federal Government’s handling of the education sector.
He
said, “It is the concern of everybody to find solution to the problem
in the education sector. There is a mistrust against the government and
ASUU have lost public sympathy. Strike action is a drag on our already
collapsed education sector.
“Government
must learn not to play with people’s intelligence and never to enter
into agreement that it cannot fulfill. ASUU must come down from its high
academic height for the interest of our education sector.”
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