Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba, the minister of state for education,
says tertiary institutions in-country will reopen “very soon”.
Speaking during a programme that aired on the Nigerian
Television Authority (NTA) on Saturday, Nwajiuba said the federal government is
also working to end the ongoing strike by the Academic Staff Union of
Universities (ASUU) before schools reopen.
Tertiary institutions in the country have been shut since
March after the government ordered their closure to slow the speed of the
coronavirus.
Nwajiuba said while private universities have requested to
be allowed to reopen, vice-chancellors want those in exit classes to resume in
earnest.
“Tertiary institutions across the country will open very
soon,” he said.
“Private universities have written us, requesting that they
are allowed to reopen ahead of public institutions. Vice-chancellors have also
requested that we allow them to reopen for their students in exit classes.
“We have also a lot of calls from bodies who want us to
resolve the industrial action embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union of
Universities before reopening because some public schools which are not
ASUU-prone want to take the advantage of the strike to move ahead, but that
would destroy our public schools. So, we are working on all these calls.”
The minister said the National Universities Commission (NUC)
would have to do an appraisal of the state of tertiary institutions ahead of
the reopening.
“We are waiting for the same from other tertiary
institutions bodies so I can situate them and present the PTF on COVID-19,” he
said.
“I can’t give the NUC a deadline on this because our job at
the ministry is to wait for their inputs. This is not a political decision
alone.
“If you open the university system, you have opened the
country.”
Nwajiuba urged ASUU to call off their strike because their
grievances “have more or less been resolved”.
“The body is making efforts to situate the visitation panel,
though, that has to be gazetted and we are on it,” he said.
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