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From Isaac Job, Uyo
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The Chairman of Akwa Ibom State Polytechnic, Ikot Osurua chapter of Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP), Comrade Eteyen Uko has said that the Union will not withdraw their stance on the controversial scheme of service introduced by the Head of Service of the federation Dr Folasade Yemi-Esan as members were not involved in the drafting.
Speaking to Daily Sun at Akwa Ibom State Polytechnic campus, Ikot Osurua on Thursday, Uko urged the federal government to sack the Executive Secretary of the National Board for Technical Education Prof Idris Bugaje for allegedly conspiring with the Head of Service of the federation to bring the controversial scheme of service which does not augur well with Academic staff of Polytechnics across the nation.
Uko expressed anger that the NBTE Secretary could not defend the Academic Staff of Polytechnics but rather conspired to spite the lecturers through some vexatious clauses in the new service scheme.
He said the Executive Secretary perpetuated the BSc and HND dichotomy whose bill to abrogate the disparity has gone through the first and second readings in the National Assembly.
Uko explained that ASUP will continue to kick against the new scheme of service because while it takes the University Lecturers 18 years to become a professor, it takes the Polytechnic Lecturers 26 years to become a Chief Lecturer which is equivalent to a university professor.
“There was a scheme of service since 1989 and later renewed in 2013 and 2019 respectively. Eventually, we saw another scheme just published by the Head of Service of the Federation Dr Folasade Yemi- Esan in collaboration with the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE)
“ASUP has kicked against that scheme of service in totality. The reason is that there are so many discrepancies and observations as far as the new scheme of service is concerned.
“The stakeholders in the Polytechnics system were not carried along. The Head of Service just signed it as a document that was presented by the Executive Secretary of NBTE, the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics was not carried along and we kick against it.
“The drafting and approval of the new scheme of service shouldn’t have been done by the Head of Service of the federation because she is not our employer and regulator of the Polytechnic education. This was wrong. “
He listed grey areas in the new service scheme for the Academic staff of Polytechnics to include the splitting of the senior Lecturer level and elongation of the Lecturer cadre to 9 steps structure requiring a minimum of 26 years to reach the topmost level in the Polytechnic system.
“You know the system of Nigeria that you graduate at the age of 26, it takes you 30 to 40 years of age to gain employment with the government and if you are employed as a Graduate Assistant, you can not attain the rank of Chief Lecturer in the Polytechnic when you retired.
“Our retirement age is 65 years. So assuming you are employed at 40, this means you can not be a Chief Lecturer.
“We are not struggling anything with the University, our own is the Polytechnic sector and we are dealing with a technological base. In the University system, it has three years as a Senior Lecturer. Why do you have four years in the Polytechnic system and you have to stay for years each as Lecturer 1& 2? Why?
The ASUP Chairman disclosed that the NBTE secretary is playing the university card to suppress Polytechnic graduates which the National Assembly is trying to address through the bill now before it.
“They don’t want to regard HND graduates as anything from what we have seen. But that does not mean that somebody who has a first degree is better than the HND graduates.
“In this institution, we have been going for competition with the University students and we come out first, second and third.
“They are universities while we are Polytechnics with different regulatory bodies.”
The ASUP Chairman therefore urged the federal government to set up the National Polytechnic Commission like the university counterpart to address injustices done to the Polytechnic system to save it from total collapse.
He said education should be inclusive, not segregative by creating disparities among graduates.
“Although this is not part of the present struggle, we are agitating that the federal government should establish the National Polytechnic Commission (NPC).
“As a matter of urgency, the federal government and National Board for Technical Education (NBTE ) should suspend the controversial scheme of service to save the Polytechnic system from collapse as many will not want to neither be students nor Lecturers in the Polytechnic system,” he said.
