ASUP INSIST ON ESTABLISHMENT OF POLYTECHNIC COMMISSION, AS PRESIDENT CALLS FOR COLLABORATIVE SYNERGY TO SALVAGE THE SECTOR
The Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP) has insisted that only the establishment of the National Polytechnics Commission could guarantee any serious development in the Nigerian Polytechnic education sector as against the present system of being regulated by a body, which oversees overt 600 other institutions with uncorrelated needs and policies.
Making the call during a working visit to the Federal Polytechnic, Ado-Ekiti, the National President of the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics, Comrade Anderson Nzebe highlighted the need for all stakeholders in and outside the sector to work for unity of purpose, in other to deliver a National Polytechnic Commission that would solely address the critical needs that could save the sector from abject neglect and total collapse.
The ASUP President also stressed the need to strengthen industrial harmony between Trade Unions in the Polytechnic sector and Institutional Managements in their labour management relations, with a view to salvaging the Polytechnic Sector from its perennial neglect and impulsive non uniform policies which might soon lead to a looming collapse of the sector.
Comrade Nzebe, while paying a courtesy call on the Rector of the Federal Polytechnic, Ado-Ekiti, appreciated Dr. Dayo Oladebeye for his show of love to Union’s agenda hitherto and assured him that the Union would do its best to always work hand in glove with Institutional Managements in very peaceful Labour-Management relations.
He disclosed that what the Union had been doing so far was in the overall best interest of the Polytechnic’s sector. He referred to the Union’s earlier efforts, which exerted pressure on the Federal Government for the reconstitution of Governing Councils of Federal Polytechnics as well as campaign for increase of capital allocation to the Institutions in the sector as against what they hitherto received.
Responding, the Rector, Dr. Dayo Oladebeye appreciated the ASUP President for deeming it fit to pay a working visit to the institution, and not on a trouble-shooting confrontational basis but on how to concretize the industrial harmony between the union and the management of the Polytechnic.
He also bemoaned the observed neglect which Nigerian Polytechnics have suffered chiefly resulting from lack of a Polytechnic Commission that should strictly address the needs of Polytechnic education in comparison with its Universities and Colleges of Education counterparts among others.
He therefore solicited for more harmonious synergy between the Trade Unions and Institutional Managements in other to salvage Polytechnic education in Nigeria and promised to always do his best, as he had been doing to support unions’ agenda within the context of available resources in his institution.
The Registrar, Mrs. Kehinde Ekanem appreciated the Union representatives for their kind gesture and enjoined them to always prioritize consultation, consolidation and consideration to ensure a smooth-running and rancour-free learning environment.
