The meeting between the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, and protesting Nigerian students ends in deadlock as the minister walks out on them.
An educationist, Michael Sule, said the strike has become a national embarrassment, but the government had failed to see that.
He said students are at the receiving end every time there is a strike because they do not only get delayed but the quality of learning is affected as a course that is supposed to take two months will now get only three to four weeks and the students will sit for the examination with little knowledge of the course.
“Worse of it is what the students will be doing during the strike. Many will definitely join bad gangs – robbers, yahoo boys or drop out to face business – and the girls may go into prostitution or get pregnant or marry and that ends their education dream,” he said.
A teacher who wants to be addressed as Okezie, expressed fear over the fresh strike, saying he is scared that many students would use the idle time to join the quick money activities (rituals and yahoo yahoo) that are trending in the country currently.
He said people go to school to better their lives so if they can make quick money and live the big boys’ life many would most probably not think of going back to school.
He said government should have addressed the issues with ASUU long ago, as for it to have persisted, meant some groups or individuals do not want it to end to the detriment of the students, their parents and society.
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) on Monday, declared a four weeks warning strike over the failure of the federal government to honour the agreement they had about four years ago.
The union and the government have been having a rift with the academia demanding that government meets certain conditions which, according to them, will address the challenges faced by the Nigerian university system.
While the strike has become the tool to draw the attention of government, both parties forget that the students, who are in no way responsible for the conditions in the system, bore the brunt in different measures.
Details later…
