ASUP Threatens FG With Industrial Action

The Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP) has threatened the federal government that it would resort to another round of industrial action should government continue to ignore the demands it reached with the union in 2012.

ASUP President, Usman Dutse, stated that several agreements ASUP and government signed in 2012 were yet to be implemented. He listed the agreements to include, non-implementation of CONTISS, poor state of polytechnics, underfunding of the sector and lopsidedness in funding by TETFUND, dichotomy between HND and bachelors’ degree, non-implementation of NEEDS assessment report on polytechnics, delay in the passage of polytechnic act and review of scheme of service among others.

Dutse said, “It is expedient for us to state that this is not the first time we are bringing to the fore the challenges confronting the education sector in Nigeria, particularly the Polytechnic sub-sector and the demands our union had placed before government as far back as 2012.”

“You may recall that these were some of the issues that had compelled our union to embark on a nine-month strike between October, 2013 and July 2014. That long strike was suspended owing to the intervention of the National Assembly; the passionate appeal of parents and other stakeholders in the sector; and on the promise by the federal government to resolve the 13 points demand of the union within three months beginning from July, 2014.

“Since the suspension of that strike, none of the contending issues has been resolved by government. What we have rather is the addition of new problems to the myriad of existing ones. The scenario obviously suggests that the coming years will be grim and marked by sluggish growth and total neglect of the sector.”