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As the industrial action embarked upon by lecturers in all the tertiary institutions owned by the Osun state government enters the third week, the striking teachers have called on the State Governor, Olagunsoye Oyinlola, to personally wade into the matter.
As the industrial action embarked upon by lecturers in all the tertiary institutions owned by the Osun state government enters the third week, the striking teachers have called on the State Governor, Olagunsoye Oyinlola, to personally wade into the matter.
The lecturers had gone on strike forcing about 30,000 students in the State
Polytechnic, Iree, Colleges of Education in Ilesa and Ila Orangun, as well as the College of Technology, Esa Oke, back to their different homes
Speaking to Daily Sun in Osogbo, the state chairman and secretary of the joint association of the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics(ASUP) and the College of Education Academic Staff Union(COASU), Messrs Adekale and Tunde Ayodele respectively, said unless their conditions were met no lecturer would go back to the classrooms.
They explained that the lecturers were not asking for anything new as the demands being sought were all in the agreement reached by the national body of the unions with relevant authorities in charge of education in Nigeria
Among the striking lecturers demands are that the government should implement their career progression up to HATIS 15 from its present 14 without conditions being attached by the civil servants at the ministry
The lecturers also want their retirement age extended from 60 to 65 as done in the universities, noting lecturers in the higher institutions do essentially the same thing as already established by the federal government report on education in 1999 by the Dr Adamu Yabani committee
Armed with various document to justify their demands which include the Longe Commission Report on education in 1994 and Professor Tunde Adeniran`s letter as the Education minister in 2000, the lecturers said the extension of their teaching period should be done in line with relevant education policies of the federal government
They lamented that instead of seven steps established by the regulating bodies for polytechnics and colleges of education in Nigeria 'it is only in Osun state that the ministry has proposed eight steps. We don't operate in isolation and there will be no basis relate it to other members of the academic community elsewhere."
'The Chief Lecturer is always on HATTIS 15. They are now proposing chief lecturer II and I. The question we are now asking is whether there is Permanent Secretary I and II or there is Professor I and II in the university.
'They think we earn too much money in the academics but they have not considered the fact that in our own case 'you must publish or perish." Besides you must join a professional body in your field with some of us paying about N100,000 for such. All these condition need not to be met in the ministry as workers," the union leaders declared, stressing that the governor must personally meet with the lecturers on their plight for the redundant students return to their various schools.