Another crisis hits Nigeria’s Education sector: COEASU  declares indefinite strike

More troubles for the nation’s Education sector as the Council of Colleges of Education Academic Staff Union (COEASU) declares indefinite strike.

This was contained in a notice of resumption of strike written to the Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu.

Persecondnews recalls that the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has been on a nationwide strike since February 2022 with unending and inconclusive negotiations.

Students who have become restive, had in May demonstrated in Abuja, Lagos, Ibadan and major cities to protest the closure of public universities as a result of the strike, an annual ritual observance in the country in the past years.

However, COEASU said with this letter to the Minister, it has resumed the industrial action suspended on the 5th of December 2018.

The union said it has no other options but to invoke the “inevitable action” following government’s lack of respect for non-confrontational, civil approach to industrial dispute resolution for which the union is noted for.

In the letter signed by Dr. Smart Olugbeko, Dr.Ahmed Lawan Bazza, President and Secretary respectively, the Union said: “lt further considered as unfortunate the evident insensitivity of government as consistently manifested in the manner of addressing our concerns.

“This is quite evident by:Failure of Federal Government to constitute its own Team and commence renegotiation of the FGN-COEASU 2010 Agreement despite all entreaties of the Union.

“Non-release of N15billion approved out of the N456,599,691,18Billion Revitalization Fund for both Federal and State Colleges of Education contrary to repeated promises of the FG.”

Other areas of concern according to the union include non-implementation of 2014 Needs Assessment Report, non-payment of outstanding promotion arrears from 2016 to date.

Also on the list of demands are non-payment of responsibility allowance to Librarian in Colleges of Education, non-implementation of the consequential effect of the implementation of CONTISS 15 on Lower Cadre (a.k.a. Migration), poor funding of Colleges of Education and poor conditions across State Colleges of Education especially in Ogun, Kwara, Abia, Kogi, Kaduna, Zamfara, Yobe, Oyo, Benue, Edo and Ebonyi States.

Persecondnews reports that ASUU’s contentious issue of a peculiar payment platform for salaries and allowances in the nation’s tertiary institutions also surfaced in COEASU’s demands.

While the Federal Government insisted on IPPIS used for paying federal workers to be applied in tertiary institutions, ASUU and COEASU want their own platform known as UTAS that captures the peculiarity of tertiary institutions.

Refusal to mainstream Demonstration Schools staff on the payroll system is a vexed issue.