The Federal Government will on Monday meet with officials of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and other relevant stakeholders to address the strike notice issued by the union.
Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman disclosed this while fielding questions from journalists during a briefing in Abuja on Friday.
It would be recalled that ASUU, few days ago, issued a 21-day notice of strike to the Federal Government over several unresolved issues.
Notably the demands include emergency revitalisation fund of public universities, payment of outstanding earned academic allowances, release of withheld salaries, promotion arrears and third-party deductions of its members.
The other issues include raised by ASUU are stoppage of illegal recruitments, proliferation of public universities/abuse of universities’ laws, regulations and processes, removal of universities from the treasury single account and new IPPIS to herald the autonomy of the universities.
However, Mamman told journalists at a press conference marking his one year in office that letters of invitation have been sent to the ASUU leadership and other organisations that would be relevant in the meeting.
“Most of the issues raised by ASUU are being attended to. For instance, the issue of exit from the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) has since been resolved by the President. Bureaucracy is the reason for delay in the implementation of that directive. But by the time we meet on Monday, some of these issues would be discussed and resolved,” Mamman said.
He insisted that President Bola Tinubu is committed to academic stability in the schools and would not hold back any support to ensure that the era of academic disruption in the tertiary institutions were over.
“Most of the demands of ASUU started in 1981. And virtually all government has had its fair share of ASUU strike. But the President made a commitment during the campaign that permanent solution would be provided this time, and he has shown that in his steps and actions,” he added.
He further appealed to ASUU to be considerate in their actions and be open-minded in their approach at the negotiation table so that interest of all parties would be properly represented.
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