FORMER Ebonyi State governor, Sam Egwu, has added his voice to condemnation of the rate at which the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) embarks on strikes. Egwu, a former Education Minister, noted that the frequent resort by ASUU to strikes could be explained by the leaders’ desire to prove to the union members that they were up and doing so as to continue to earn their support, recalling that as minister, he was treated to “a dose of the poison.” He said it was inexplicable that union leaders should declare industrial action in the middle of negotiations. Speaking with The Guardian shortly after the maiden matriculation ceremony of Evangel University, Akaeze, at the take-off campus, Okpoto in Ishielu Local Council of Ebonyi State, Egwu said ASUU should be seen as a Labour union since, according to him, “Labour unions all over want to flex muscles even when it is not necessary. “ASUU should be seen as a Labour union, or how can one explain a situation where negotiation is going on between it and the Federal Ministry of Education and they have reached a certain point. Along the line, ASUU members said they were going to report to their members. And before they could get back to the ministry, they declared a strike. The same thing happened during my regime. We were discussing with them and we were so willing to improve on their complaints, most of the things they are talking about now were approved during our own time,” he said. The former governor regretted that ASUU could not wait for the government to conclude action on the issues before going on strike, stressing that if “the main reason they do that is just to prove to their members that they are shaking the government”, they should know that strike is not the only way to protest. Egwu added: “For Christ’s sake, strike is not the best way to show discontent; it is instructive that not all the members and chapters are in support of the recent strike. It shows that lecturers are getting tired of these frequent strikes; they are actually hurting our educational system. It should not be the best approach”. On the possibility of Nigeria meeting the 2015 target of attaining the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) in education, Egwu said it is not likely for the nation to meet the target, noting that other countries like India and Pakistan, which are in the same bracket with Nigeria, happen to be hampered by regime changes and population explosion. He recalled that the Road Map for Education charted by his administration had “a timeline that presupposes that by the time we finish the first five years, we go to another stage in a gradual process. That was a scheme intended to get us out of the woods in terms of education because we need to harness areas students can do very well instead of cramping everybody into courses for which they do not have aptitude”.
Posted on: Sun, 21 Jul 2013 21:02:36 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015