Academic Staff Union of Polytechnic (ASUP) has said it has no plan to call off its over two-month old strike yet, which it embarked upon on October 4, expressing disappointment at the federal government’s cold attitude towards polytechnic education in Nigeria.
National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Clement Chirman, who disclosed this
in Jos, Plateau State, yesterday said the National Executive Council
(NEC) of the union met at the Labour House in Abuja on December 12, to
review the progress made so far on the negotiation with the government,
and concluded that government had no iota of seriousness towards
resolving issues with the union.
Chirman observed that “the seeming preference for university education
over polytechnic education in Nigeria by government is disappointing
considering that polytechnic graduates have competed favourably well
with their university counterparts at workplaces.”
He said the polytechnics were demanding for only N20 billion as against
the universities whose demands ran into trillions of naira, “yet the
government has maintained a cold attitude towards our relatively small
demand.
“Government has deliberately refused to sign and release the White
Paper of the visitation panel to the federal polytechnics about one year
after the visitation.
Government has also refused to discuss where it will get the funding
for the implementation of the approved CONTISS-15 Migration, which
amounts to about N20 billion.” chairman added that “government only
approved but did not give the financial backing.”
He said ASUP had therefore resolved that until these issues were fully
resolved, the polytechnics would remain shut across the country. 
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