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Tuesday, November 5, 2013

What is ASUU fighting for?

Much hope is in Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU)  calling off her about 4 months old strike after meeting with the President yesterday(4/11/13). An average Nigerian after much negotiations between the Federal Government and ASUU does not know much about the  touted Jan 2009 agreement.

ABU Senate Building

The following are summary of requests by ASUU as stated in the signed 2009 agreement.

 Issues about the  CONDITIONS OF SERVICE were raised.Various issues as related to remuneration were outlined. A  Salary Structure for Academic Staff in Nigerian Universities which entails  a separate Salary Structure for University Academic staff to be known as Consolidated University Academic Salary
Structure II (CONUASS II) was recommended.

Allowances for things like supervision of postgraduate student was  explicitly spelt out e.g. Lecturer I  would collect N15,000 per student, per annum, Senior Lecturer N20,000 per student, per annum
and Reader & Professor N25,000 per student, per annum.

Other issues like Teaching Practice/Industrial Supervision/Field Trip Allowances, Honoraria for External Moderation of Undergraduate and Postgraduate Examinations ,Postgraduate Study Grant,External Assessment of Readers or Professors, Call Duty/Clinical Duty/Clinic Hazard and Responsibility Allowance where explicitly spelt out with amount attached in the agreement.

The academicians in their usual characteristic where very thorough with even excess workload allowance was requested for

  • Professor                N3,500 per hour
  • Reader                   N3,500 per hour
  •  Senior Lecturer      N3,500 per hour
  • Lecturer I               N2,000 per hour
  • Lecturer II              N2,000 per hour
  • Assistant Lecturer   N2,000 per hour
  • Graduate Assistant  N2,000 per hour
There were non-Salary conditions like Vehicle Loan/Car Refurbishing Loan, Housing Loan,Research Leave(twenty-six (26) working days per annum) and Sabbatical Leave(Locally or Abroad which if abroad
,the University shall pay the transport expenses of a spouse and four children) etc.

The retirement age was negociated  from 65 years to 70 years for those in professorial grade with attached clauses. Issue bordering on Pension and Health Insurance were also raise.
Students recieving a lecture
By Vincent demart (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons


University Funding was also raised and funding for Federal Universities which include  Recurrent and Capital Grants was recommended between 2009 and 2011 as thus

Year                      Amount (N)
      2009                     472,031,575,919
      2010                     497,531,778,701
      2011                     548,768,190,681
             Total                      1, 518, 331, 545, 304

while State Universities which is calculated per student
Year                        Amount (N)
2009                        1,144,075
2010                        1,205,880
2011                        1,330,063
Total (approximated) 3,680,000

 Furthermore it was recommended that 26%(minimum) of of the annual budget of the State and Federal Governments should be allocated to education while at least 50% of this money should be for Universities.

Education Tax fund and Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF)were recommended for restructuring.
Entrance of Bayero University Kano Library
By Michael Sean Gallagher from London, United Kingdom (The entrance to the main library) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Under Chapter 5,University autonomy and academic freedom was recommended for protection and promotion. A very pro-students recommendation here was the curtailing the current excess of universities establishing pre-degree programs as revenue generating avenue.

JAMB and NUC act etc were recommended for amendment .These are in addition to other recommendations.



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