Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics, ASUP, will this week embark on a nationwide rally to protest government’s lukewarm attitude to polytechnic education in the country.
National President of ASUP, Mr. Chibuzor Asomugha, who disclosed this yesterday, said there would be a meeting of the Council of National Officers within the week in Abuja to decide when the rally would kick off.
Mr. Asomugha said the rally would take place in all the zones and local chapters of the union for the world to know how government had completely forgotten polytechnic education, alleging that children of those in government were not in any polytechnic in the country.
He said: “We will decide on the rally, we will meet to decide. Now we are holding press conferences, we held one in Kaduna last week; this week, we will hold one in Enugu and next week in Zone B, Abuja, Nassarawa and Jos axis, then it will remain the South West. After that, we will decide when to tell our local chapters to begin to embark on rally.”
ASUP had on April 17, 2013, embarked on strike to press home demands on issues around poor funding of polytechnic education and government’s disparity between polytechnics and universities.
However, after a meeting between the union and government, the 13 points demand of the union was reduced to four, with government assuring that the striking lecturers’ demands would be met within one week. The re-assurance led to the re-opening of the polytechnics on July 9, 2013.
ASUP boss accused the Federal Government of not showing any interest in polytechnic education, adding that there was no sign that government was interested in implementing the promises made to the union before the strike was called off.
He added that government’s care-free attitude was a deliberate ploy to deny polytechnic students of access to education.
He expressed surprise that the government that had promised to implement the promises made to the union within one week before the strike was called off had turned its back on the union seven months after.
