The Colleges of Education Academic Staff Union (COEASU) has distanced itself from the alleged job racketeering being probed in tertiary institutions by the Federal House Representatives.
The union, however, urged the new Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman, to prioritise and invest more in teacher education as a first step to reshaping the education sector.
COEASU President, Dr. Smart Olugbeko, spoke on Tuesday in Abuja, during a two-day workshop, organised by the union in conjunction with the committee of provosts In Nigeria.
The theme of the workshop is ‘Leadership Skills Development for Effective Industrial Relations in the College of Education System,’ and is aimed at equipping members to have greater capacity to deal with issues of industrial concern and ensure peace on campuses.
Olugbeko noted that COEASU had been at the forefront of actually confronting the impunity of job racketeering and would not have been part of it.
He disclosed that the job racketeering came with the enrollment of lecturers on the Federal Government’s Integrated Personnel Payroll Information and System (IPPIS), where the Office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation would grant a waiver for “secret” recruitment of staff.
He said: “What we discovered is that since the introduction of IPPIS in 2020 it has been practically impossible for the provost or management or councils of our institutions to carry out employment without interference from the Head of Service.
“So for now, even when we have staff or lecturers that have left the system, the Provost cannot replace them and we do have a situation whereby the Provost will have to apply to the Head of Service that they want to replace the staff that left.
“But you discover that some of these applications will stay with the Head of Service for even one or two years without any reply and in the course of doing that we discovered that even at the end of the day when the permission is granted, it is always followed by a kind of a waiver that there shouldn’t be advertisement and as a union we have been opposing this vehemently.
“We discovered that the more we fought over this in the past the more we couldn’t even achieve more because the forces that are actually working to get this done are even more and greater so to us we are not part of it, we have been fighting and resisting it,” he added.
Olugbeko, who noted education in Nigeria is at a very low ebb, insisted that the current administration would not get it right if teacher education is not accorded its proper place.
“What we have been doing is making government to actually take teacher education seriously. We have made different official positions to the government on how teacher Education could be repositioned and one of the ways of getting it done is to get our institutions well-funded to be able to produce quality teachers.
“Because if you do not produce quality teachers you would not have teachers with the capacity to be able to teach at those levels. If the government has not been able to fund our Colleges appropriately then what comes out of that is our inability to produce teachers of high quality.
“Therefore, the first thing the government needs to do is to take teacher education seriously, funding teacher education in such a way that it will be able to produce capable teachers that will make our schools have quality teaching and learning.
“We will be meeting with the Minister for the first time, It’s a courtesy call and we are not going to confront him with issues but we want to acquaint him with the need for him to take teacher education seriously because when we are talking about ministry of education, ordinarily it is all about teaching.
“We want to make the Minister realise that his primary function is to make teaching and learning effective in Nigeria,” he said.
Executive Secretary of the National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE), Prof. Paulinus Chijioke Okwelle, said the Commission is continuously engaging the government to ensure a conducive atmosphere for teachers in the country.
“We have been meeting, just yesterday it was our turn to brief the Minister on the affairs of the Commission and the Colleges, We have done that and I assure you, there is more prospect.”
Speaking on the issue of job racketeering, he said most of the things that have happened in the Colleges since he took over is replacement and due processes were always followed from the Head of Service down to the Federal Character Commission up to the budget office.
He, however, admitted that on the assumption of a few years ago, he received a plethora of petitions against the management of some of the colleges and that most of the issues have been resolved giving way to industrial harmony in the affected institutions.
The Director, Colleges of Education Department, Federal Ministry of Education, Uchenna Uba, who represented the Minister of Education, said the ministry is aware of the agitations of the union and is working towards addressing them.
He said the focus on developing leadership skills is paramount to fostering effective industrial relations within the Colleges of Education system.
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