ABUJA— PERMANENT Secretary of the Ministry of
Education, Mr. Mc John Nwaobiala, has said there
is no budgetary provision to settle the arrears owed
lecturers of federal polytechnics, who are currently
on strike.
The Permanent Secretary made this disclosure
during a meeting with the House of Representatives
committee on education to resolve the 10-month old
Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics, ASUP, strike.
He said the ministry, however, plans to request for
special funds from the President to be able to take
care of the about two years arrears.
Nwaobiala also explained that the white paper of the
much agitated government visitation panel to
federal polytechnics would be released “between
this week and next week.”
Members of ASUP have been on strike since
October last year after it had earlier embarked on a
three-month strike in April last year, calling on the
government to meet certain demands.
The initial 13-point demands of ASUP were later
reduced to four following series of meetings with
government.
The four demands are upgrading the lower cadre
polytechnic staff to CONTISS 15, release of white
paper on visitation panel, constitution of governing
councils for polytechnics and setting up a NEEDS
assessment committee.
Government, however, met two of the demands
earlier this year, which are the NEEDS assessment
committee and the constitution of the governing
councils.
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