Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, announced this, at the World Teachers’ Day celebration held at Eagle Square, Abuja.
Adamu, whose speech was read by the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education, Sonny Echono, said his ministry would collaborate with the state governments to ensure automatic employment for the students on graduation.
He said, “Undergraduate students of B.Ed / B.A. Ed/ BSc. Ed in Public institutions are to receive stipends of N75,000.00 per semester while NCE students will get N50,000.00 as stipends per semester.
“Federal Government should find the modality through which respective states’ governments could provide automatic employment for NCE graduates at Basic Education level.”
A statement by the Public Relations Officer of the University, Abiodun Olarewaju, subsequently announced the immediate closure of the university and asked the students to vacate their hall of residence before 12 pm on Saturday.
The management also put on hold the swearing-in of the newly elected Students’ Union officials, pending review of the situation.
The statement read in parts, “However, management condemns in strong terms the continuous and uncontrolled protests by the students culminating in unbridled brigandage, blocking the Ife/Ibadan and Ife/Ede highways and other adjoining roads that could be used as alternative routes, and engaging in other acts that are detrimental to their health and the safety of the generality of the people.
“Therefore, having exhausted all necessary avenues to call the students to order and allow normalcy to return to the campus and its environs, the authorities of the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, have accordingly closed down the school until further notice. This is to forestall further breakdown of law and order.
“In view of this, all students are hereby directed to vacate their halls of residence and the campus latest by 12:00 noon on Saturday, October 2, 2021. Consequently, the swearing-in of the newly elected Students’ Union officials has been put on hold, pending a review of the situation. In the meantime, the University management has put in place the machinery to unravel the circumstances surrounding the immediate and remote cause(s) of the crisis.”
The Minister of State for Education, Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba,made the disclosure yesterday in Abuja at a symposium organised by the Ministry of Education.
The symposium is part of activities to mark the forthcoming 2021 World Teachers Day with the theme “Teachers at the Heart of Education Recovery”.
“The President has approved the enhanced salary structure and we will finish it very soon.
“The president specifically approved that it should take effect from 2022.
“We are doing all to finish it to ensure that by January 2022, teachers should get the remuneration they deserve.
“We are fast tracking the process of implementation to see that by the end of year we will be able to tell Mr President that all the incentives he has approved are ready for implementation,”he said.
He further said: ” The President has taken the lead by approving a far reaching and revitalising programme for the teaching profession in this country and there are many soft incentives in that.
“All that is required is for other actors down the line like state governors, the National Assembly and others to key into this initiative and ensure that the implementation is seamless.
“For instance, we are tired of hearing how long teachers are being owed salaries in states.
“It is criminal. So, with the new initiative, we have incentives to attract the best brains and retain them in the teaching profession.
“All welfare issues including housing, training and retraining, enhanced remuneration, allowances are being taken care of,” he said.
The union’s National President, Prof Emmanuel Osodeke, disclosed this in an interview with newsmen in Abuja.
Recall that ASUU had issued ultimatum to the Federal Government and accused the government of deliberately ignoring its demands.
Osodeke said, “For now, there is nothing new from their (government’s) side. They have deliberately continued to do this in a bid to make us bad.
“We have given them enough time and we are sure the public has heard our cries. The NEC will be meeting next week. No particular day yet but it is next week.
“We are hoping they do something before next week. When we meet, we will weigh our options and decision will be taken.
“We will update you with other things. But we are meeting next week and they have till next week.”
This was contained in a circular issued by the Federal Ministry of Education to principals of federal unity schools.
It was titled In the circular with no: FME/DBSE/US/DOC/III/16 and signed by the ministry’s Director Senior Secondary Education, Hajia Binta Abdulkadir.
The circular was confirmed by the Director of Press and Public Relations, Ben Bem Goong.
The government threatened to expel any SSS One and Two students who take the exams.
The circular read, “The ministry’s attention has been drawn to the flagrant disregard to its directive on (the) writing of external examinations such as NABTEB (NTC and NBC), WASSCE, NECO (SSCE) by SS1 and SS2 students.
“Students who are involved in the practice find it difficult to settle down on serious studies. They become unruly and distract other students from achieving their goals.
“Any student caught to have written any of the above examinations in SS1 or SS2 classes will be expelled from the college. All students must write these examinations after they have been duly registered for the examination by the college.
“All students of Federal Unity College should adhere strictly to the content of this circular. And Principals are advised to bring the content of this circular to the knowledge of all parents of the college.”
The Academic Staff Union of Universities, said it might be compelled to embark on another strike if the Federal Government failed to implement the December 22, 2020 Memorandum of Action signed with it prior to the suspension of the last strike.
The Zonal Coordinator of ASUU, Benin, Prof. Fred Esumeh, told newsmen while speaking on ‘Another Inevitable Round of Crisis in Nigerian Universities.’
Esumeh said: “For the records, that strike action was declared on the 23rd of March 2020 over the federal government’s failure to honour the terms of an earlier 7th February 2019 MoA in which the federal government had freely agreed to conclude the details of the renegotiation of the FGN-ASUU 2009 agreement.
“The specific issues remain that the federal government deliberate delay in deploying the University Transparency and Accountability Solution as the payment platform for university staff, the non-payment of the due tranche of Earned Academic Allowances.
“Others are the non-release of the earlier agreed N40 billion fund for the revitalisation of public universities, the unwillingness to sign the draft of the renegotiated 2009 agreement, the continued non-payment of promotion arrears, the non-payment of withheld salaries and the non-remittance of deducted check-off dues of the union.”
Students of Comprehensive Secondary School Nkume Njaba in Njaba Local Government Area of Imo State were chased of the examination hall by suspected Indigenous Peoples of Nigeria (IPOB) operatives.
The students and staff were pursued by enforcers of the Sit-at-home order while they were about to write the West African Examination Council (WAEC) English Language Examination.
The Nation learnt a group of men came into the school around 8.30 to chase the students, staff and invigilators and burnt down all the motorcycles parked in the premises.
Narrating her experience, a student, who gave her name as Ngozi, said: “Unknown gunmen came into the hall to ask us to stop our exams and chased us out. They also burnt bikes.”
A resident and a businessman, Nick Iwuoha advised the security agencies to show more capacity of protecting the people during the enforced order.
“If our security agencies have shown the slightest sign that they are capable of protecting the people, many citizens will defy these sit-at-home orders.
“It is becoming rampant and frivolous. I trust the Igbo man, just a matter of time, it will lose steam and public sympathy and the people will defy it. In the meantime, let the security agencies shown some capacity,” he said.
He stated this as a guest on Channels Television’s ‘Sunrise Daily’ breakfast programme monitored by newsmen.
According to the governor, students in the North should not be given lower cut-off marks but the same cut-off marks as their counterparts from other parts of the country for them to be competitive nationally and internationally.
He said, “The north has always been behind in education, we’ve continuously been the disadvantaged region right from independence even though we’re given preferences, JAMB scores and all that. That has not helped, in fact, it has made our people lazy.
“Against this differential JAMB and FG (Federal Government) scores, I think people should be encouraged to work hard and compete and we are prepared to make our children in Kaduna State to be competitive, not only in the state but globally.
“The schools are closed now because, on the advice of security agencies, they need a couple of months to undertake massive security operations. They are doing that. We are confident that from the next two weeks, we would start the gradual reopening of schools.
“We have moved many of our students in rural areas that we are not sure we can protect to urban schools, thereby increasing the congestion in urban schools that we can protect.”
“The continuous closure of schools is exactly what bandits and Boko Haram want and we are not going to let them win but we must put the safety of our children and teachers first,” the governor noted, adding that the gradual reopening of schools would commence soon.
According to the board’s Registrar, Prof Ishaq Oloyede, who briefed journalists at JAMB’s headquarters in Abuja, the candidate, Chinedu John, had claimed he scored 380 in the examination conducted in June was surprised to receive 265 from the board after the results were released.
Oloyede said, “We have 11 of them who tampered with their results. Two of them are already being prosecuted. The remaining ones we are going to withdraw their results and prosecute them. The main purpose is to sanitise the system, including our own staff.
“There was never any communication of 380 with this boy. Because this boy has accused JAMB, we are going to withhold his result until the investigation is concluded. We are going to request that our interactions with him be subjected to the public.”
However, the candidate’s father, Enugu-based lawyer, Ikeazor Akaiwe, appealed to the board to instead give room for further investigation.
“I will not stand against investigation. Let there be investigation but what I will not agree to is to prejudge him,” he said.
Earlier, John had said, “The result I have been receiving is not the result I am entitled to. I wrote the first JAMB in 2019.
“The first time, they sent 328 and later, I saw 278 when I checked it. I printed it. I couldn’t meet up for admission that year. I wanted to study medicine and surgery at the University of Ibadan.
“In 2020, the same thing happened. I scored 343, but by the time I went to the portal to print, I saw 306. I used the 306 and it gave me admission in UI. But because I didn’t have Further Mathematics, I had to forfeit it.
“I decided to leave Medicine and Surgery for them in 2021 so I picked Petroleum Engineering. In 2021, JAMB issued me two results. I saw 380 the first time I checked and then the second time, I saw 265.”
Members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) have asked Nigerians to hold the Federal Government responsible for their next action on government’s failure to honour an agreement it signed with them.
ASUU spoke of a plan to hold an emergency National Executive Council (NEC) this week with its leaders and principal officials to decide its members’ next line of action.
The union said it will follow-up its NEC meeting with consultations with all its chapters should the government fail to implement its promises to his aggrieved lecturers.
ASUU’s latest threat followed the expiration of the August 31 deadline issued to the Federal Government to meet its demands.
ASUU President Emmanuel Osodeke said: “ASUU never proposed a strike, we said if government does not meet all our demands by the end of August, the union will meet and consider the action to take.
“But the country should hold the government responsible for any action we take and that was what we said we didn’t mention embarking on strike.
“The ASUU president cannot just wake up one morning and pronounce we are going on strike not even the principal officers, we have to go through our branches.
“The ultimatum will end today so we will hold a meeting with our members to determine the way forward.”
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