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From Adanna Nnamani, Abuja
The Colleges of Education Academic Staff Union (COEASU) is warming up to down tools following a plethora of unfulfilled pacts it has with the federal government.
The union listed some of its demands to include the renegotiation of the 2009 agreement, resolution of crises being created by the imposition of
Integrated Personnel & Payroll Information System (IPPIS) and the immediate release of the N15 billion Revitalisation Fund which it insisted were critical to the development of Colleges of Education in Nigeria.
The union through its National Officers’ Council (NOC) led by its president, Dr Smart Olugbeko, on Tuesday, frowned at the aloofness of the Federal Government to the Colleges of Education sub-sector, adding that the Union will in the next few weeks mobilise its National Executive Council (NEC) to take necessary actions as permissible by the Trade Union Act if the government failed to do the needful.
“COEASU observed with utter dismay the attitude of the Federal Government to the Colleges of Education sub-sector.
“The Union in its characteristic disposition to peaceful resolution of issues has between August and December 2021 met with the Minister, the Permanent Secretary, Directors, and other officials of the government that have roles in addressing the lingering issues between the Union and the government several times. The issues of Renegotiation of the 2009 Agreement, the crises being created by the imposition of IPPIS and the release of the N15 billion Revitalisation Fund are critical to the development of Colleges of Education in Nigeria and the Union has put these among others on the front burner for government to quickly resolve them.
“As critical as these issues are, the Federal government has been lackadaisical in resolving them.
“The Union has been consistent in mounting pressure on the government to release this fund to colleges to meet their urgent needs that are hampering teaching and learning. The government has totally abandoned its responsibility of adequately funding teacher education as the government has left Colleges of Education in Nigeria to continue to suffer from infrastructural decay while the running of the Colleges is being done by the paltry Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) of the Colleges. This attitude of the government has further watered-down standards in our colleges and demotivated both staff and students as there are inadequate lecture rooms, ill-equipped laboratory, obsolete library, and unconducive learning environment”, he said.
Olugbeko added that various efforts made by the Union to make the government live up to its promise have not yielded any positive results.
“Our Union has been careful in deploying the instrumentality of strike to resolve the issues which we believe can be resolved through dialogue, but it seems this government has a preference for crises as it has shown in its dealings with unions that it has no respect for peaceful resolution of issues.
“COEASU is a teacher-training Colleges based union, all our members are professional teachers, we have a perfect understanding of what disruption in the academic calendar through strike action can cause the students mentally, socially, and psychologically, thus our cautious approach to the use of the strike. However, the government has demonstrated total disrespect for our maturity in handling issues and has mistaken our understanding for weakness”, he added.
