Strike Looms In Varsities Over Committee’s Report

ALTHOUGH it was established to chart the path to revitalise the falling standard of education at the tertiary level, the recommendations of the Needs Assessment Committee of the Public Universities may be a harbinger of industrial crisis.

Some of the 189 recommendations of the Prof. Mahmud Yakubu-led committee, who is also the Executive Secretary of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND), have pitched the non-academic staff of varsities against government.

The Guardian gathered in Abuja at the weekend that the three non-academic unions in the universities: Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions (NASU), Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) and National Association of Academic Technologists (NAAT), have begun mobilising their members for an indefinite strike, which may be declared any moment from now.

General Secretary of NASU, Peters Adeyemi, identified non-inclusion in the Needs Assessment Committee, the recommended sack of non-academic staffers and non-implementation of the 1999 collective agreement as issues in contention.

Meanwhile, what may likely cause worry in the committee’s report is the revelation that only 28,128 out of 37,504 lecturers in Nigerian universities have Ph.D.

Specifically, on page 153 of the recommendations, the committee recommended placement of embargo on the recruitment of non-academic staff and staff audit. “Having support staff out-numbering the main staff is a complete misnomer in the university,” it said.

The committee also recommended converting all non-teaching staff in Nigerian universities to the staff of federal or state Ministries of Education to enable government restrict administrative spending and personnel cost and be in full control of the increasing growth of the population of non-teaching staff in the universities.

The committee also recommended the immediate disengagement of non-teaching staff, who are due for retirement and stoppage of universities from hiring non-teaching staff on casual, part-time or contract basis.

But the recommendations are deemed offensive and a ploy to sack non-teaching staff in the universities by the unions.

The unions queried why none of their members was included in the committee when the immediate past President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Prof. Ukachukwu Awuzie, was a member