Colleges of education lecturers begin strike
by Orowo Victoria Ojieh Education Correspondent
A one-month strike, effective Tuesday 14th of June, has been called by National Executive Council of the Colleges of Education Academic Staff Union.
This was contained in a communique signed by COEASU President, Dr. Smart Olugbeko and General Secretary, Dr. Ahmed Bazza Lawan, respectively.
The Union made the decision after a meeting at the Federal College of Education (Technical), Asaba, Delta State, on Friday, June 10, where it assessed the level of federal government’s response to its requests, following the expiration of the 21-day ultimatum issued to government on the lingering issues of the industrial concerns.
The Union is operating under the umbrella of Colleges of Education Academic Staff Union,COEASU. Like other tertiary institution-based unions, the union had requested that the federal government attend to its demands.
The union said it is disappointed with the continued inaction of the government on the lingering issues despite the union’s perseverance since the last strike action was suspended in December 2018. COEASU hereby called on it’s members to resume the strike action suspended by the Union in December 2018 for four weeks, adding that the strike action shall include all members of the academic staff in all Colleges of Education both Federal and State.
Read Also: Time to heal: Asiwaju’s approach
The union further stated that after the four weeks of strike action, NEC shall reconvene to re-assess the level of the Government’s commitment on the issues for an appropriate decision.
Among other things, COEASU is accusing the government of failing to constitute its team, and begin renegotiation of the FGN-COEASU 2010 agreement, Non-release of N15billion approved, out of the N456Billion revitalization fund recommended for both Federal and State Colleges of Education contrary to repeated promises of the government, insistence on Integrated Payroll and Personnel information system (IPPIS) against University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) and the non –implementation of 2014 Needs assessment report in colleges of education.
Others demands include Non –payment of outstanding promotion arrears from 2016 to date, non – payment of responsibility allowance to Librarian in colleges of education, Non -implementation of the consequential effect of the implementation of CONTISS15 on Lower Cadre(a.k.a. Migration) since 2018.
COEASU strike is also due to poor funding of colleges of education and poor conditions across state-owned colleges of education especially in Ogun, Kwara, Abia, Kogi, Kaduna, Zamfara, Yobe, Oyo, Benue, Edo and Ebonyi states.
