Education, Featured
By Christabel Ejenike
THE eight-month-long strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, appears to be heading for a full year of non-academic work. And some stakeholders and students have lent their voices in calling on ASUU to call off the strike and save the carrier programmes of the students, who have been at home for this long, especially now that students in private universities have resumed their academic programmes.
These concerned stakeholders have noted the progress made in resolving the disputes that led to the strike, which included the arrears of salaries and allowances owed the members of the union and their demand for a separate salary platform, which has been resolved.
The students and some stakeholders are daily lamenting the effects of the strike on the academic programmes of the students. For instance, Qasim Akinreti, former chairman of the Nigerian Union of Journalists, NUJ, and the Deputy Director of Digital Media, Voice of Nigeria, VON, said: “The ASUU has made the next generation of Nigerians unproductive.”
Akinreti told Realnews in an interview in Lagos on December 9, that the incessant ASUU strike “will affect the economy soon as not only will the system produce half-baked graduates, but some of the students will not measure up to the international standards as they have not had adequate training.”
“What the ASUU is agitating for is quite okay, but how long will they continue to hold on to this agitation without considering the overall effect on the educational system of Nigeria,” he said.
Qasim urged ASUU to devise other means of agitating for their rights that will not disrupt the academic programmes of the students.
According to him, it is uncharitable for ASUU to demand for the payment of salaries for the eight months they have been on strike.
He, however, advised parents and guardians to enroll their wards in vocational programmes that are relevant to their course of study.
For Alumode Chinecherem, a student of Alex Ekwueme Federal University Ndufu-Alike Ikwo – AE-FUNAI, in Ebonyi State, the ASUU strike is contributing to the increasing cases of depression among the students.
Alumode told Realnews that missing a full academic year is frustrating for the students, who are equally unproductive.
He believed that the strike has contributed to the surge in crimes in the country and that something urgent should be done to reopen the universities and keep the students engaged since “an idle mind is a devil’s workshop”.
Speaking recently in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, on cultism and other vices, Prof. Chinedum Nwajiuba, Vice Chancellor of Alex Ekwueme Federal University Ndufu-Alike Ikwo, said that “cultism is for people who do not have anything to do.”
Awugo Jessica, a student of Federal University of Lafia –FULafia, in Nasarawa State lamented that the long stay at home by the students would affect their performance whenever the universities reopen and that the students of Federal and State universities will not be part of the next set of the National Youth Service Corps programme since they have lost one full academic year.
. – Dec. 16, 2020 @ 18:30 GMT /
Tags: Why ASUU should call off strike
