AAUA students seek peace betwee between management and ASUU

Worried by the lingering industrial action by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), students of Adekunle Ajasin University Akungba-Akoko (AAUA) in Ondo State have appealed to the management and their lecturers to return to the negotiation table.

The institution chapter of ASUU, through its chairman, Dr Sola Fayose, declared an indefinite strike two weeks ago over the management’s inability to pay lecturers’ outstanding salaries.

Some students, who spoke with CAMPUSLIFE, said the strike is taking negative toll on their pursuits, urging the management to accede to their lecturers’ demand for them to return to the school.

A final year student, Marcus Amudipe, lamented the development, saying students should not be the made to bear the brunt of the action.

He said: “When two elephants fight, the grass suffers. My advice to both parties is for them to dialogue and find a common ground for the sake of students.”

Mary Fagbiye, a 300-Level student, expressed displeasure over the strike, urging the lecturers to reconsider the management’s offer.

Noting that the strike has distorted the school calendar, Mary appealed to the parties to settle their differences and end the strike.

ASUU draws battle line with FG over scrap of Post-UTME

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) on Monday lambasted the Federal Government for scrapping the Post-Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination.

National President of ASUU, Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi, told newsmen in Abuja, that the cancellation “portends serious danger for the quality of education in this country”.

“The argument of federal government on the policy is unacceptable and potentially harmful to the future of Nigerian’s education system. We call on government to rescind its decision and convene a genuine stakeholders’ meeting on the issue before making any policy statement”, he added.

Ogunyemi insisted that the Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, did not enjoy the sole prerogative to endorse the examination conducted by the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board.

He said, “Such statement coming from the Minister was unfortunate because JAMB should not be saddled with the responsibility of solely conducting entrance examinations into the nation’s tertiary institutions.

“We call the attention of the Honourable Minister of Education to the fact that Post-UTME is a child of necessity and rationality and a decision that Nigerian Universities had to take when the credibility and integrity of JAMB examinations and
results became questionable.

“When universities were admitting solely on the basis of JAMB scores, unimaginable discrepancies were observed in the JAMB scores of candidates and their performance in the first year in the University.

“Consider a candidate who got a JAMB score of 290 out of a maximum of 400, yet had to withdraw from the University at the end of the first year on account of very poor performance. It is important to note that this happened not in isolated cases. Virtually all universities reported such cases.

“The University of Ibadan conducted a study on the correlation between JAMB scores and performance at the University, and reported a negative correlation between the two. The results were published in the Ibadan Journal of the Social Sciences. The introduction of Post -UTME was based on sound empirical evidence.”

ASUU said there had been considerable improvement in the quality of students admitted into the universities since the introduction of Post -UTME.

The ASUU leader added that: “The Post-UTME has its problems which we believe can be addressed. To curtail exploitation of parents and candidates, government can improve funding to universities and other tertiary institutions”.

Ekiti university workers on strike over unpaid salaries

Academic and non-academic activities were paralyzed on Monday at the Ekiti State University, (EKSU) Ado-Ekiti, as the workers protested against non-payment of six-month subventions, salary arrears as well as cooperative deductions among others.

The angry staff prevented vehicular
and human movement in and out of the institution as they ensured that all gates to the campus were under lock and key.

Vehicles were parked outside as many of the staff and students roamed about in front of the school gate.

The unions who participated in the protest include the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Non-Academic Staff Union of Universities (NASU) National Association of Area Technologists (NAT) and Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU), among others.

According to them, contrary to the government’s view that the institution’s recent investment in some ventures to shore up its Internally Generated Revenue (IGR), has made it capable of taking care of paying salary, emoluments, and remuneration, all is not well, as the management has only been able to pay a paltry 20% of the staff’s salary arrears since March this year.

They maintained that the management had failed to live up to its responsibilities due to the failure of the state government to pay subventions since January this year.

Governor Ayodele Fayose had during its convocation last month praised the management of the institution for raising the bar of its IGR to cater for its salaries and allowances, but the protesting workers said the governor might have been misinformed by the school management as they have been receiving 20 percent of their net pay since January this year.

Speaking about the plight of the workers, SSANU chairman, Mr.
Kolapo Olatunde, said: “the last subvention the State Government released the to the university was in December, last year.

ASUU faults JAMB on new admission guidelines

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), University of Ibadan chapter, has lashed out at the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) for acting beyond its powers by releasing admission guidelines for Nigerian universities.

The union said it is the mandate of the Senate of Nigerian universities to regulate admission modalities and determine what best suits each institution.

The ASUU Chairman at the institution, Dr. Deji Omole, stated this while reacting to the 2016 admission guidelines recently released by JAMB.

He said both the Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, and JAMB Registrar, Prof. Dibu Ojerinde, are confused and inconsistent by first going against collection of administrative charges under Post-UTME by universities, but now preaching payment of screening fees in “its illegal guidelines which is designed to favour the children of the rich against the poor.”

Omole said Adamu and Ojerinde are unaware of happenings in Nigeria universities, adding that the newly released point – based scoring system is not new as it was innovated and used at the University of Ibadan for five years and abandoned.

He stressed that the institution has moved beyond such model of admitting students.

He said, “JAMB is acting beyond its mandate which is to conduct and release results. The Senate of universities has the right to determine the model or guideline to adopt to admit their students from the pool of candidates sent to it by JAMB.

“Each university has standards which are not subjected to the whims and caprices of any government appointee. JAMB does not have the powers to tell universities how to conduct their screening. It is a way to cover up their inadequacies because JAMB’s credibility as an examination body is yearly being queried.

“JAMB and its handlers are confused. Last year, they arbitrarily placed students in private universities to satisfy the needs of their cronies. These were mainly children of the poor who had not chosen those institutions. In the just concluded JAMB examinations, they awarded candidates with extra 40 marks without any justification.

“Now, those with two sittings results will be shortchanged and those awaiting results will be disadvantaged. There will be rise in result racketeering at WAEC again as people will be purchasing grade ‘A’ since that is what will guarantee admission.

“More miracle examination centers will spring up and JAMB and the minister would have succeeded in entrenching corruption and further kill university education in Nigeria. ASUU stands by university autonomy. JAMB cannot determine admission guidelines for universities, rather JAMB must be overhauled to make their results believable and trusted.”

IMSU ASUU SUSPENDS STRIKE – LECTURES BEGINS JUNE 27

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Imo State University chapter, today suspended its 3 months strike action.

This development is the aftermath of the meeting held today by the union.

The chairman of the union called on all the members as well as the students to resume academic activities.

Sequel to this, academic activities are expected to resume fully on Monday June 27th, 2016.

ASUU, AAU Chapter yet to decide on proposed strike

According Cletus Oribhabor the
SUG Director of Information the meeting held by the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, Ambrose Ali University,AAU, chapter at around 10am yesterday has not yielded the desired result.

ASUU (AAU Chapter) were unable to come to a conclusion whether or not to embark on strike after series of talks which lasted hours.

However, the School management are trying to convince the aggrieved  lectures not to embark on strike but ASUU insisted on embarking on strike, pending when their request are attensed to.

The meeting has been adjourned for today wednesday 22nd July 2016 for finally conclusion.

ASUU React: Bill that proposes 5-year jail term for randy lecturer is unfair

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) on Monday,June 20, in Abuja said the Sexual Harassment Bill, 2016 before the Senate undermined university autonomy.

President of the union, Professor Biodun Ogunyemi , stated this at a Public Hearing on the bill, organised by the Senate Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the Sexual Harassment Bill was sponsored by Senator Ovie Omo-Agege (LP- Delta Central) and co-sponsored by 57 other senators.
The bill seeks to criminalise sexual harassment in tertiary institutions and it, among other things, proposes a five-year jail term for lecturers found guilty of sexual harassment of students.

Ogunyemi said that universities were established by law as autonomous bodies, adding that there were laws that clearly articulated redress procedures.

“As a global norm, universities and other tertiary institutions are established by law as autonomous bodies and have their own laws regulating their affairs.

This includes misconduct generally among both staff and students, with clearly articulated appropriate redress mechanism.

Any law or bill which seeks to supplant these laws violates the university autonomy.

In this particular instance, the bill violates the Federal Government of Nigeria and ASUU agreement of 2009 and as such should be rejected,” he said.

He said that the bill was discriminatory because it was targeted at educators.
According to Ogunyemi, “ it is unfair to come up with such a bill; sexual harassment is a societal problem and not peculiar to tertiary institutions”.

He also said that the bill was a violation of Section 42 (1) of the 1999 Constitution, adding that it was embarrassing that the legislative arm could seek to make such law that would violate the Constitution.

Ogunyemi also pointed out that besides violating the Constitution, the bill failed to take cognizance of various extant legislation that adequately dealt with sexual offences.

Faulting the bill further, he said that it failed to provide convincing evidence to show that sexual harassment in tertiary institutions had attained a higher magnitude than other spheres of the society.

“The bill is discriminatory, selective, spiteful, and impulsive and lacks logic and any intellectual base by attacking the character and persons of those in tertiary institutions rather than addressing the issue holistically.

"Furthermore, the bill is dangerous and inimical to the institutions as it contains several loose and ambiguous words and terms which could also be used to harass, intimidate, victimize and persecute, especially lecturers, through false accusation,” he said.

However, the National Universities Commission (NUC) supported the introduction of the bill “in view of its relevance” and called for its passage.

The Executive Secretary of the commission, Professor Julius Okojie , said that while federal and state universities had administrative structures for handling grievances, there was nothing wrong in having a legislation to help with that.

OAU: ASUU disagrees with SSANU, NASU over new VC

As some industrial unions, including the non -teaching staff of the Obafemi Awolowo University are kicking against the appointment of the institution’s new Vice Chancellor, Prof. Ayobami Salami, the university’s chapter of the Academic Staff Union of the Universities (ASUU) yesterday described the process producing him as free, fair and transparent.

The ASUU disagreed with Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) and Non Academic Staff Union (NASU.)
At an interactive session at the OAU ASUU’s secretariat, its chairman Dr. Caleb Aborisade, disclosed that there was a signed agreement in 2009 between the Federal Government and the ASUU on the appointment of the universities’ Vice-Chancellors.

Speaking particularly on OAU, he further disclosed that he appointment of the Vice-Chancellor was advertised and published in major national dailies, where according to him, the selection process was clearly stated.

Aborisade said that the university’s Governing Council and the Senate with the committee set up for the new appointment of the Vice-Chancellor was also stated in accordance with the selection procedure that the contestants must be a professor for at least 10 years.

He averred that unions’ role in the appointment of new Vice-Chancellor was clear enough, saying that it was discussed by the congress