Thursday 26 September 2013

FG has 60 days to meet our demands or else … — COEASU

THE Colleges of Education Academic Staff
Union (COEASU) has given the Federal
Government a 60-day ultimatum to meet its
demands. The President of the Union, Mr.
Asagha Okoro, said “the nation would
regret looking down on the teaching education sector if concrete steps are not
taken to address COEASU’s grievances.” In an exclusive interview with Vanguard
Learning, Okoro said: “we have packaged all
the issues facing the teaching education
sector. If we do not see concrete action
within 60 days, we will employ non
conventional industrial methods to make our voice heard. What we are asking for is
not much; most of these demands can be
met with as little as N26bn. After a one
week warning strike, the Union met with
government representatives at the office of
the Minister of Labour and Productivity, Emeka Wogu, last Thursday. Outome of meeting Okoro, speaking on the outcome of the
meeting said: “We were told that our
concerns were germane and will be
addressed. However, the issues discussed
were forwarded to the Minister of State for
Education and we were told that a meeting would be scheduled with him as soon as
possible.” The union had pointed out 17 issues to be
addressed by the government. They
include: “the suspicious delay in the release
of the 2012 visitation white paper; the
refusal of colleges managements to recruit
commensurate academic manpower to cater for the high dearth of academic staff
to meet the contemporary challenges
engendered by the rising population of
students; the non-harmonization of
conditions of service for academic staff of
all tertiary institutions to stem brain drain from the colleges of education to the
universities; the proposed selective
imposition of IPPIS in the CoE and the
polytechnics; the truncation of a hitherto
functional and innovative Tertiary
Education Trust Fund leading to obvious regrettable gaps that compromises the
critical need for the consolidation of the
gains recorded during the past five years;
non implementation of CONPCASS, 65years
retirement age and Migration to CONTISS
15 in some state CoE; the non conduct of Needs Assessment for CoE to address
students and staff needs for the
enhancement of quality teaching and
learning.”


Supervising Minister Education, Mr. Nyesom Wike

Others are: the refusal of government to
approve an Independent degree awarding
status for all CoE certified by NUC as being
qualified to award degrees in Teacher
Education; illegal imposition of Group Life
Insurance underwriters and the non payment of death benefits to our deceased
colleague’s families between 2000 and
2013; non budgetary allocations for
outsourced services and the refusal of
government to heed the call for the
abrogation of outsourced services and the offer of regular employment to all those in
the outsourced cadre and the payment of
out-standing arrears to the tune of
N2,443,278,543.96; the non allocation/
release of funds (N2,344,765,841) for
crucial academic activities like accreditation programmes, among others. Meanwhile, in its bid to forestall another
strike action by COEASU, the Minister of
Labour and Productivity, Wogu, has signed
a Memorandum of Understanding with
COEASU which charged the Federal Ministry
of Education to, as a matter of urgency, meet with the Union to determine some of
the issues at stake. At the end of the Thursday meeting aimed
at reassessing the extent of the
implementation of the agreement reached
on the 30th of August 2013 between the
Ministry of Education and COEASU, the MoU
states that all new issues tabled at the mediatory meeting will also be sent to the
Supervising Minister of Education as they
are specific administrative issues within the
Sector which require tackling; That the Federal Government appreciates
the suspension of the seven days working
strike embarked upon by the Union due to
the intervention of the Federal Ministries of
Labour and Productivity and Education on
30th August 2013; That the Office of the Accountant General
of the Federation will demonstrate the
workings of the IPPIS platform to the
Executive of COEASU on October 29,2013; That in consideration of the above
conciliatory meeting which is at the instance
of the Minister of Labour and Productivity,
the meeting shall reconvene after 60 days
to consider progress made in respect of the
outstanding issues now referred back to the Federal Ministry of Education.

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