The Education Rights Campaign (ERC) fully welcomes the decision of
three trade unions - the Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT), the National Union
of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) and the National Union of
Electricity Employees (NUEE) - to embark on solidarity strike actions to compel
the Federal Government to honour agreements signed with the Academic Staff
Union of Universities (ASUU).
The ERC urges the three unions to take this beyond the realm of
threats and immediately name a day on which the solidarity strike would take
place and begin active mobilisation of their rank and file members as well as
students who are frustrated at home and concerned Nigerians to come out
en-masse for mass protests and demonstrations on this day. We commend the three
unions for taking this decision which we believe is in the best interest of the
education sector and the Nation at large.
We agree that the ASUU strike has gone on for far too long and the
plethora of strikes in the education sector are just too many. On Tuesday 8
October, the ASUU strike became 100 days old. Slowly the entire public
education sector is grinding to a halt. For instance, the public polytechnics
are equally closed and it will not be too long before the Colleges of Education
Academic Staff Union (COEASU) follow suit. The Colleges of Education lecturers
had recently held a 7-day warning strike. Indeed, the Academic Staff of Union
of Polytechnics (ASUP) had to resume the strike, they had suspended in July
after three months, due to the insensitivity and insincerity of government to
their demands and terms of the suspension of the last strike.
A wave of one-day solidarity strikes by the labour movement
accompanied by mass protests and demonstrations can alter this situation and
compel the Federal Government to meet the demands of ASUU, ASUP, COEASU and
other unions on industrial actions so that the schools can resume. This is why
we commend the three unions for taking this decision which we believe is in the
best interest of the education sector and the Nation at large.
The three unions come from key sectors of the Nation's economy. As
such their decision to embark on solidarity strike if given full and practical
effect could help pile pressure on the recalcitrant anti-poor Federal
Government to meet demands of striking education unions so that public
Universities and Polytechnics can be reopened for academic activities to
resume. This would also serve as an example for other unions and the entire
labour movement to follow.
We want to stress that the solidarity actions which the NUT,
NUPENG and NUEE have envisioned should also cover and back the strikes of ASUP,
COEASU and all other unions in the education sector that have any on-going
dispute with the government over pay, conditions and education funding. This is
the best way to ensure that all the outstanding disputes in the education
sector are resolved and all public Universities, Polytechnics and
Colleges of Educations are opened for full and undisrupted
academic activities.
In welcoming and advocating for solidarity strikes, the ERC is
quite aware of the concern of some members of the public who are worried that
solidarity strikes especially from a union like the NUT would only shut down
the entire education sector to the detriment of ordinary Nigerians especially
since children of the rich few are not enrolled in public schools. This kind of
concern cannot be simply overlooked.
However the point that must be made is that with or without
strikes, the entire education sector including secondary and primary education
has already been destroyed and shutdown in terms of standard and quality that
it is simply a pipe dream to imagine any serious learning is going on at any
point in time in any of our public schools. Teachers in the secondary and
primary schools are not enough and are overworked, classrooms are overcrowded
while in most schools the roofs are leaking such that as a rule classes are not
held during the rainy season. While the products of public Universities are
said to be unemployable, products of public secondary schools are mostly
half-educated. In this kind of situation, public secondary and primary schools
as well as teachers stand to benefit immensely if the on-going struggle to
ensure government funds education adequately is won.
This is why a solidarity strike from the NUT is not only a step in
the right direction but something that needs to be built upon such that primary
and secondary schools teachers and pupils can be actively involved in the
struggle to save public education from collapse.
Indeed at this time, what is
required is the unity of all unions in the education sector including students
in order to jointly build a strong mass movement that can challenge the
government anti-poor and neo-liberal policies of education underfunding and commercialization.
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