President Muhammadu Buhari has been called upon to as a matter of urgency sign the dichotomy bill seeking to abolish the discrimination between polytechnic and university graduates into law.
National president of Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP), Anderson Ezeibe who re-echoed the call in Asaba on Wednesday, regretted what he described as the Federal Government’s deliberate actions of demarketing the sector with discriminatory practices, disrespect for extant laws, inadequate funding among others.
Fielding questions on the sidelines at the opening of the 16th National Delegates Conference of the union in Delta State capital, Ezeibe lamented the plethora of woes bedevilling the Nigerian polytechnic system, adding that it was a breach of the law for the government to have appointed unqualified persons as rectors of five polytechnics recently established.
This, the president noted tantamount to laying the very wrong foundation for the take-off of the institutions.
The conference which was declared open by the Rector of the Federal Polytechnic, Oko in Anambra State, Mrs Francisca Nwafulugo, the official host, was shifted to Asaba due to the precarious security situation in the South East.
On funding, Ezeibe decried that in June, this year, the Federal Government approved a paltry N15 billion as the revitalisation of infrastructure funds in lieu of the implementation of the Needs Assessment Report of 2014.
“But as we speak, six months down the line, not a penny has been released. If you get to the schools, you will discover that a lot of infrastructures are Tetfund sponsored.
“That is why we are talking about stopping the proliferation of polytechnics in Nigeria. In Abia State, staff of the state polytechnic are owed for 31 months, and the governor said on national TV that he has no regret.
“So if you are not ready to fund, don’t establish, you don’t establish a polytechnic just to attract fund from Tetfund in the name of the contract.
“Establish a polytechnic with the mind to meet a mandate, the mind to meet the educational and technological needs of the people.
“In so many state-owned polytechnics, capital appropriation is zero, any single infrastructure there is sponsored by Tetfund. This is a very wrong way to go,” he said.
Ezeibe said the Federal Government has continued to change the nomenclature of agreements since 2010 without the commitment to implement the terms of the agreement
“In 2010 we signed an agreement, it was just called an agreement with the government. In 2015/2016, it was changed to Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).
“Now that we went on strike from April 6 to June 10, 2021, it was changed to Memorandum of Action. And all of this connote agreement but changing the names has not changed the attitude of the government in implementing the agreement. That is where the challenge is.
“The latest one we signed, we said that we need to go back to the negotiation table to renegotiate the conditions of service of lecturers in the Nigerian polytechnic system.
“We are still on the same salary scale from 2010 till now. I can tell you that the salary of a chief lecturer at the bar was about N360,000 per month in 2010.
“The value of that money as we speak is not up to N80,000 a month for very obvious reasons – inflation, devaluation of the naira. The price monitoring index in the CBN website has gone as much as 35%,” Ezeibe added.
Rector of the Federal Polytechnic, Oko in Anambra State, Mrs Francisca Nwafulugo had declared the conference opened.
Oko was the official host of the delegates conference but the precarious security situation in the South East forced the union to shift to Asaba in Delta State.
YOU SHOULD NOT MISS THESE HEADLINES FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNE
We Have Not Had Water Supply In Months ― Abeokuta Residents
In spite of the huge investment in the water sector by the government and international organisations, water scarcity has grown to become a perennial nightmare for residents of Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital. This report x-rays the lives and experiences of residents in getting clean, potable and affordable water amidst the surge of COVID-19 cases in the state…Varsity/Poly dichotomy Varsity/Poly dichotomy
Selfies, video calls and Chinese documentaries: The things you’ll meet onboard Lagos-Ibadan train
The Lagos-Ibadan railway was inaugurated recently for a full paid operation by the Nigerian Railway Corporation after about a year of free test-run. Our reporter joined the train to and fro Lagos from Ibadan and tells his experience in this report…Varsity/Poly dichotomy Varsity/Poly dichotomy
and then