EDUCATION Lecturers’ strikes dampen Kadpoly students’ morale

Students of Kaduna Polytechnic have said incessant industrial actions by their lecturers under the ages of Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP) have continued to prolong their graduation and erode their faith on the education system.

ASUP, Kaduna Polytechnic chapter, had on August 29, 2017 started fresh industrial action, shutting down all academic work in the institution. The striking lecturers’ action followed the failure of the union and management to resolve the contentious issues for which an earlier strike was suspended on July 18, 2017.

Daily Trust gathered that the strike action commenced when students were writing their examinations which they had to live unfinished.

The evening session students had not even started their first semester exams when the strike began.

“I have just two exams to conclude my programme in Kaduna Polytechnic and the union embarked on strike. I cannot count the number of strikes I have witnessed in this school. I am highly de-motivated and I regret coming to school here,” a student with the Department of Nutrition and Dietetics said.

Another student attending an evening programme who gave his name as Ibrahim said that while other polytechnics were planning to start the second semester, Kadpoly evening students are yet to write their first semester examination before the strike action.

He said the strike would lead to unnecessary delay capable of destabilizing the lives of students. “Our lecturers should please sympathize with us; it should not always be about them.

“We understand their demands but they must also consider how many of us have spent six years running a four years programmes.

“We the students are not responsible for the welfare and other privileges of our lecturers but we suffer the effect of strike actions,” he also said.

Also, reacting to the strike action, the President of National Association of Polytechnic Students (NAPS), Comrade Mohammed Eneji, described it as uncalled for, lecturers embarking on a strike when students were at the verge of writing examinations.

Speaking on behalf of the newly elected executives of the association, Eneji gave the management a 5-day ultimatum to dialogue with the union with a view to resolving the impasse.

“If the strike is still on at the expiration of the ultimatum, we shall come out en masse to carry out a protest. There is need to fund education because it is the best legacy that can be given to ordinary children.

“These old men enjoyed free education in a serene environment, so it is our right to enjoy what we are paying for. We demand to have a better education,” Eneji said.

He called on the Federal Government to make policies that would improve the education system.

Some of the issues in contention, according to the Publicity Secretary of Kadpoly ASUP, Malam Abbas Muhammad, included poor working conditions, irregular academic calendar and routine lack of consumables for laboratory practicals, even when such is a component of the students’ school fees.

Others are inadequate amenities and conveniences, lack of recreational facilities, inadequate offices and furniture and the perennial lack of transparency in funds related to staff allowances.

The union called on the government, general public and all stakeholders to prevail on the management of the polytechnic to ensure a timely resolution of the problems.

Meanwhile, a former executive member of the union and a lecturer in the Department of Mass Communication, Balarabe Said, has blamed incessant strikes in tertiary institutions on lack of political will saying governments spent least on education.

He said lecturers’ strikes would continue for as long as ‘hypocrisy persists’ and if government continued to fail its part in honoring agreements duly entered into.

“Most of the leaders pursue foreign schools for their children, so how do we expect them to care or show concern about local institutions,” he said.

He also said management hasn’t done much to ensure stable academic calendar.

“They are the custodians of the institution and the number one line of defense of the institution's survival. No one can protect the integrity of the institution or its calendar than the management, and no one has demonstrably abused same as the management.

“Though in every epoch of a popular struggle, victims are made. As much as we can sympathise with the students, the staff suffer even more. The students do eventually go out of the system, anyway. The staff remain here until their career ends. It is a lifetime choice or almost.

“So, the staff suffer more than the students by virtue of the logic of the long term involved.

“Students go through these temporary setbacks and leave us with the rot in the system but in all of this, it is the system that suffers most. We continue to bequeath to upcoming ones, the problems we fail to solve,” Said said.

He urged the students to see their teachers as cosufferers in the challenges the institution continued to face, saying, no good teacher will enjoy staying off work except when such becomes inevitable.

When contacted, the acting rector of Kaduna Polytechnic, Dr. Catherine E. Uloko, said the management was making ‘efforts’ to resolve the matter.