Government and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU)
will meet today in a last ditch efforts to resolve the lingering crisis
in the University System.
As a prelude to the meeting scheduled for 10.00a.m today, the Federal
Government was locked in a meeting with the Vice Chancellors of the
federal universities for about two hours on Monday. Supervising Minister
of Education, Mr Nyesom Wike, who chaired the meeting held at the
auditorium of the National Universities Commission (NUC), had said the
meeting was a normal interaction with the vice chancellors and before
the commencement of the meeting, excused journalists, personal
assistants, his aides and all others, except the vice chancellors,
ostensibly to prevent leakage of their deliberations.
Wike, after
the closed door meeting declined comment to newsmen, but told
journalists that the government would be meeting with the leadership of
ASUU today.
However, it was gathered that the meeting was
to see how the universities that have been shut for about four months
now could be reopened to students as well as fine-tune discussion on the
position of the government against the meeting with ASUU today.
It
was gathered, on Monday, that the meeting today would afford the ASUU
to report to the government about the position of the union on the
offers by the Federal Government so far.
The fresh accord struck
by the Vice-President Namadi Sambo with the union, government had agreed
to increase the N30 billion already released for the payment of
academic earned allowance to N40 billion.
Accordingly, vice
chancellors were urged to expedite the disbursement within the shortest
possible time using guiding templates that have been sent by the
Committee of Vice Chancellors to them.
On the implementation of
the Needs Assessment to Nigerian Universities report, it was stated
that the government was cognisant and mindful of the ability of
universities to effectively and efficiently utilise the N100 billion
fund immediately, hence that figure.
Also, on project
prioritisation, universities would now be allowed to determine their
priorities and not be “rail-roaded” into implementing a pre-determined
set of projects with respect to the NEEDS assessment. Decisions are not
to be centralised.
Although, the President of ASUU, Dr Nasir Isa
Fagge, could not confirm the willingness of ASUU to attend today’s
meeting, it was gathered that zonal meetings of ASUU in their various
universities were held last week to collate opinion of the members of
the government offers.
READ MORE: http://news.naij.com/50858.html
READ MORE: http://news.naij.com/50858.html
Tuesday, 29 October 2013
ASUU STRIKE: FG Talks With Vice Chancellors Fruitful
03:08
No comments
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
0 comments:
Post a Comment