THE Committee of Pro-Chancellors of state-owned Universities (COPSUN) has called for the removal of labour and wages matter from the exclusive legislative list of the Nigerian Constitution to allow the state governments to exercise appropriate control over their workers.
The committee gave this position in a communiqué issued at the end of its 52nd quarterly meeting held in Abuja last week and made available to newsmen.
Presided over by its chairman, Mallam Yusuf Ali of the Osun State University, Osogbo, the committee argued that the structure and operation of the country’s federalism about public institutions established and owned separately by the federal and state governments under different legislations have been a major problem of state universities.
The committee stressed that the state governments should be allowed to negotiate wages with their workers because according to it, the rights of trade unions to demand welfare of its members should be based on employer-employee relationship.
Worried by the instability in the academic calendars of the state universities particularly due to incessant strikes by both academic and non-academic staff unions, the committee appealed to the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) in particular to de-emphasise strikes as the major tool of negotiation with the Federal Government.
While observing that the disruption of the academic calendars has adversely affected the quality of the nation’s universities regarding their products and research outputs, the committee said the core values of education have been negatively impacted by the instability in the university system resulting in falling standards.
The committee therefore announced that as its own contribution to the reform of tertiary education in the country, an international conference would be organised before the end of the year to consider the various challenges facing universities and proffer appropriate solutions.
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