Student Group Urges CONUA to Join ASUU strike
NEWS DIGEST – The Education Rights Campaign on Obafemi Awolowo University campus has urged the Congress of Nigeria Union Academics (CONUA) to corroborate with the Academic staff union of Universities (ASUU) in the ongoing strike.
The organization noted that the factionalised academic body on campus has caused confusion in the minds of students as some students of some departments are attending classes while some are not due to the body their lecturers belong.
“As the ASUU strike continues, lecturers in Obafemi Awolowo University have been divided because of the factionalisation of the union in the University. The Education Rights Campaign while we do not encourage factionalisation, except when it is based on matters of principle of the struggle, decries the problems that the factionalisation has caused for the students of the campus. The long overdue strike to demand that the Federal Government honor an agreement that it willfully entered into to fund education is by all means justified on the principle of workers solidarity”
Education Right Campaign also fault the ‘consideration’ of CONUA in ensuring undistrupted academic calendar at the expense of the ASUU request for better learning environment.
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“The consideration of members of the CONUA to ensure stable academic calendar that students keep going to class and break the strike with the help of their worker members, is not only a betrayal of this principle but also a self defeating position. It is obvious that the students cannot be examined on the classes taken by the ASUU members who have decided not to come to class in compliance with the strike. This can only mean that at the end of the day, the semester would still have to be elongated to accommodate their own classes.”
“It is on this basis that we urge for the unity of the unions for the purpose of this strike. We, in the ERC, urge that the CONUA should support the ASUU strike to ensure that the strike successfully achieved its aim of securing the proper funding of the education sector. We opine that unions are pressure groups and should not be used as platforms for campaign and support for candidates aspiring for top positions within the University management, rather unions should pressure the management to democratize the institution as much as possible towards having elected representatives of students, parents, teaching and non teaching staff, and community members governing the affairs of the institution” reads the release”
The press release is coming after a student-lecturer congress held at the university yesterday to have a round table discussion with students.
While speaking on the calendar extension at the congress, the Varsity’s deputy vice chancellor academics, Prof Banire said that the calendar is not going to be extended as exams and other academic activities is in top gear and students should not be disturbed.
Congress of Nigeria University Academics was formed as a parallel body before it was fully presented earlier this year.
In-house crisis in ASUU, misappropriation of funds amidst other reasons were rendered by CONUA for tge secession.
NewsDigest can authoritatively report through thorough observation that departments like Botany, zoology, foreign languages have since the declaration of the ASUU strike been on strike and students of the embattled departments have been at their respective homes.
Checks also confirms that departments like English and literary studies of the institution are not receiving lectures on full scale as some lecturers attending classes while others not.
