The Federal Government has said
that talks with the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) have so far
been fruitful, expressing optimism that the ongoing strike by the university
teachers, will soon be called off.
According to the Minister of
Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, this is predicated on the FG’s
consideration of some of ASUU’s demands, including the submission of the
union’s list of outstanding payments, and the identification of some areas in
the universities in need of revitalisation as contained in the signed 2009
agreement.
Ngige said: “There are areas that
are still outstanding which we are going to address on the 17th. We have the
issue of shortfall of salaries, that of some federal university workers. ASUU
has given a list to the office of the Accountant General.
“We agreed that by Wednesday that
the list will be checked to find out really whether those universities were
actually paid and they have to be visited and paid the outstanding lecturers
there. So, the Accountant General’s office is to come back to us.
“We have also the issue of Earned
Academic Allowance and the issue of revitalisation. These are issues of 2009
agreement. We will look into the consideration and we have identified one area
of the fund for revitalisation.
“The federal government organs
will be contacted and we do expect that we will have some words for ASUU. Same
goes for the earned allowances. We will make sure that the issue of the
outstanding amounts is handled in a way that all parties will be properly
accommodated,” he said.
Ngige revealed that during the
talks, the quality of graduates from state-owned universities was brought to
focus, with a view to upgrading the standard of education in order to meet with
global standards.
“We also discussed the issue of
state universities and since education is on concurrent list, the universities
should be properly funded and staffed, so that we do not produce half baked
graduates from those universities. And towards realising that, the ministry of
education will engage the Nigeria Governors’ Forum. The minister of education
is taking steps towards that direction and will organise that interaction.
“Engaging them directly and
giving professional advice is what the ministry will do. These are some of the
issues we discussed and to me; the discussions were fruitful. We want the
children to go back to school,” he added.
Click to signup for FREE news updates, latest information and hottest gists everyday
Advertise on NigerianEye.com to reach thousands of our daily users
No comments
Post a Comment
Kindly drop a comment below.
(Comments are moderated. Clean comments will be approved immediately)
Advert Enquires - Reach out to us at NigerianEye@gmail.com