ASUP, COEASU Protest In Akwa/Ibom state [1] Friday-May-2014 [ 12-38-PM ]

Academic activities
have been
grounded across
tertiary institutions
in Akwa Ibom State
including the State
Polytechnic (AKWAPOLY), Ikot Osurua;
College of Education (CoE), Afaha Nsit and
the College of Arts and Science (CAS),
Nung Ukim, as union leaders called out
their colleagues in protest over sundry
issues.
Under the Joint Action of Unions (JAC),
leaders of the Academic Staff Union of
Polytechnic (ASUP); College of Education
Academic Staff Union
(COEASU) and the College of Arts and
Science, met in Uyo, the Akwa Ibom State
capital, condemning what they described
as government insincerity in the
development of tertiary institutions in the
State.
The Chairman of ASUP, Comrade Iboro
Paul Ibara; the Chairman of COEASU,
Madam Gloria Inyang and Comrade Isaiah
Ekwere of the teachers’ union at CAS,
flayed what they called systematic erosion
of the values of higher education,
lamenting that such action has led to brain
drain in the system.
Addressing Journalists on the matter
yesterday in Uyo Comrade Ibara, listed the
problems to include non-compliance with
65 years retirement bar for lecturers,
haphazard implementation of teachers’
remunerations and the problem of
decayed education infrastructure in the
affected schools.
According to him, the need to shut down
the affected schools stemmed from these
anomalies, which, he noted, have made
the tertiary education sub-sector totally
subservient to politics and government
bureaucracies, adding that these
problems have impinged negatively on the
development of higher education in the
State.
He noted that senior lecturers have left
the system in droves, having realized that
their future was no longer protected by
the managers of the system.
Ibara, who recalled that the coalition of
unions in the affected institutions had
earlier sent their position on the matter to
government and other relevant agencies
including the Assembly Speaker, Head of
Service, Education Commissioner and
other concerned authorities, said the
institutions would remain shut until all
these grievances were addressed.
He said: “We have observed that, rather
than attend to our demands, as contained
in our earlier memo, Government has
moved ahead with the blind
implementation of thefaulty scheme,
resulting in diverse deleterious effects on
members. We had hoped that these
unsavoury outcomes and the attendant
possibility of breakdown in industrial
relations could be averted.
He recalled that the State government had
agreed in 2011, at a meeting with the
aggrieved teachers to implement the
Consolidated Polytechnics and Colleges of
Education Salary Structure, to no avail,
lamenting that non adherence to the 65
years retirement bar for senior academics,
was killing the system.
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