The Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, has rejected the ten thousand naira (N10,000) offer proposed by the National Parent-Teacher Association of Nigeria, NAPTAN.
NAPTAN had on Wednesday offered to pay N10, 000 per session by every parents whose child is in the university to assist the Federal Government in making more funds available for universities
“We have submitted a letter to the Office of the Education Minister, seeking an audience where we hope to discuss a proposal.
“We are proposing a sum of N10, 000 per parent every session that will be directly paid to the universities. That will be our own contribution apart from other statutory payments in making more funds available to the universities”, said NAPTAN’s Public Relations Officer, Dr. Ademola Ekundayo.
But reacting to the offer on Thursday on AriseTv, ASUU’s National President, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, advised NAPTAN to join forces with the organization to ensure that Federal government prioritises education in the country.
His words: “I think what this association should be doing is to tell the government to perform its function.
“They should meet the president and tell him: Honour your agreements, make education number one priority in the country and use Nigerians money to fund education as it is done in other countries. That should be the pressure coming from that group.
“If you do that the country will take education as number one priority. Then meet National Assembly and ensure that when you are doing a budget look at the budget allocation of countries in Africa, like Kenya, Uganda, Ghana, South-Africa, and take that average and allocate to education.
“We can’t be priding ourselves as the giant of Africa and we are the worst in education, such that Nigerian students go to Universities in Benin Republic, Togo, South Africa and nobody from these countries is coming to Nigeria to study.
“If we are giant, we must perform as giant. Education is number one. My advice is that they should add to the pressure of ASUU to ensure that the government prioritises education and perform its statutory duty of ensuring that Nigerian students have access to education which is their right. That will be more important than this 10,000 (Ten thousand).
“Parents are already paying whether you like it or not, when we were students, we stayed in hostels subsidized, we were paid bursary for being a student but today all these are gone, parents have taken care of these responsibilities.
“Government should be advised just like our past leaders Obafemi Awolowo, in the South-West, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Sir Ahmadu Bello, the way they prioritsed education, our current leaders should go that way. The first set of education was built by these people.”
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