There was a mild drama Tuesday at the meeting convened to find solution to the lingering strike of the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP) when Polytechnic students accused their lecturers of being selfish with their strike.
According to the President of the National Association of Polytechnics Students(NAPS), Ogbonnaya Sunday, the lecturers are only pressing for things that will favour them, omitting the main issue of concern to the students in their demands, HND-BSc dichotomy.
Mr Sunday warned that if the industrial dispute between the Federal Government and the Polytechnic Lecturers is not resolved within two weeks, the students will take to street.
But the President Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP) Chibuzo Asomugha, wandered if the lectuerers had been invited for a meeting with the ministry of education or to be embarrassed by their students.
He questioned the sincerity of the Federal Government for spreading stories about the meeting before the lecturers were told about the agenda of the meeting.
He said the Polytechnics lecturers had included the issue of discrimination against polytechnic graduates in their 13-point demand, but it was omitted when the government team chose four issues it could solve out of the 13 issues.
He said even the needs assessment committee set up to tour polytechnics and assess the level of decay in the system has not started its work since it was set up in October last year because government said it must be funded by the TETfUND which hasn’t released any money to the committee.
The Supervising minister of education, Nyesom Wike, said the ASUP president was selective in his criticism of the NAPS president as he didn’t address the Students’ leader’s criticism of the government.
He said the selection of the four out of the 13 issues was collectively done by both the government and the lecturers, and not the government alone.
He said the Federal Government has addressed the issue of salary structure for the lecturers as it is included in the 2014 budget and that what is left is how it will pay the 20.4 billion salary arrears to the lecturers. The meeting them moved into a close door session after which the lecturers are expected to brief the press about the meeting.
Watch video of the meeting here
