The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) may have suspended its eight months strike, but the anxiety about the Union’s demand is only intensifying the fear of another industrial action in the nation’s public universities.
Over the decade, threats of strikes by ASUU and other sister unions have continued to haunt the tertiary education system.
Although ASUU has suspended the strike, there is a good reason to worry given that the issues in dispute were yet to be satisfactorily addressed and the university system could be facing another industrial action.
ASUU president, Professor Emmanuel Osodeke said the Union called off the strike due to the court injunction, appeals from students, parents and the intervention of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, not because issues have been addressed.
While the fear of another strike is likely, it can be avoided. This is an opportunity for both ASUU and the government to start constructive talks about finding a permanent solution to this menace while learning is in progress.
There needs to be a more mature way of driving collective bargaining of ASUU’s demands while maintaining basic services to avert further consequences on the students, says experts.
Some of the Union’s demands include better funding for the universities and increased pay for its members as contained in several agreements it had with the government.
We May Embark On Another Strike If… – ASUU
Specifically, ASUU is requesting the release of revitalisation funds for universities, payment of its members’ earned academic allowances, the release of whitepapers from the reports of the presidential visitation panels as well as the deployment of the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) as the preferred payment platform for university workers.
But now that the University lecturers have returned to work, experts want the federal government to begin the process of fulfilling some of the agreement, under which the Union suspended the strike, or devise other means of funding the university system.
I’ve also gathered that the academics had yet to get the assent of the President, General Muhammadu Buhari regarding the plan for a new agreement and the no-work-no-pay policy. This also calls for an urgent action to be taken.
Speaking to me, the executive secretary of Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), Architect Sonny Echono said there is a need for new funding architecture in tertiary institutions to address the current issues.
He lamented that the government alone can’t bear the burden of funding tertiary education.
“We need to rethink the whole idea of education funding to expand it to include all those grade levels in participation of all actors, universities working extremely hard to generate internal revenue, to attract access grants, to attract endowments and through the IGR, to work towards self sustaining,” he said.
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