President, Nigerian Academy of Science, Professor Mosto Onuoha, says incessant industrial actions are doing more damage than good to higher education system in Nigeria.
Onuoha said this Wednesday during a webinar on “Building Resilient Higher Education System in Nigeria”, organised by the academy.
He made the statement while reacting to the ongoing strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).
According to him, the academia, parents and students are losers during such industrial actions.
ASUU, on March 23, embarked on a nationwide industrial action.
The strike followed the decision of the federal government to stop the salaries of lecturers, who had not enrolled in the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS).
ASUU has been opposing to the use of IPPIS for lecturers.
The strike is also to compel the government to implement the agreements and resolutions of Memorandum of Action discussed in the 2009 ASUU-FGN agreement, the 2012 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) and the 2017 MoA, all of which had not been honoured.
Onuoha, however, urged the government to stop entering into agreements it could not honour.
“Instead of entering into agreements and not implementing them, the government should keep negotiating with ASUU until we get it right with the challenges facing our public tertiary institutions.
“These incessant strikes are really affecting our university education negatively,” he said.
The academy president urged ASUU to be flexible in their demands, saying, “ASUU cannot have it all.
“Many of ASUU strikes do not yield government’s full intervention or implementation to agreed terms. And we cannot continue to shutdown the universities.
“This matter is about dialoguing. It is about give and take. ASUU cannot have it all.
“So, I appeal to our colleagues to be flexible in their demands, to help build a resilient and quality higher education system in the country,” Onuoha said.
