Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Polytechnics, SSANIP is set to embark on a three-day warning strike from Wednesday, January 22, over what it calls marginalisation of non-teaching staff members and denial of their deserved career progression.
In a letter dated January 14, 2025, and addressed to the Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa, the union’s secretary Nura Gaya said the warning strike has become imperative to emphasise the union’s position concerning the ongoing plot by certain stakeholders to unjustly deprive Non-Teaching Staff of Polytechnics and Similar Institutions of their rightful progression to the peak of their careers under consolidsted technical education distinct salary structure, CONTEDISS 15 and in the ongoing redrafting of the Polytechnic Schemes of Service.
The letter further said, “SSANIP has consistently championed the cause of equity and justice within the polytechnic system and has repeatedly called for the implementation of career progression policies that accommodate both Teaching and Non-Teaching Staff, noting that regrettably, previous engagements with relevant authorities have yielded little to no tangible results, adding that the current machinations against Non-Teaching Staff represents a direct affront to these efforts.
In a similar development, the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics, ASUP has rejected what it calls plans to change the bill on the establishment of National Commission for polytechnic education to Nigerian commission for technical education.
ASUP, in a statement signed by its president Shammah Kpanja says currently, the regulation of technical and vocational education is within the purview of the National Board for Technical Education, NBTE,
established since 1977, and serves as an umbrella for all Nigerian polytechnics and monotechnics, representing the tertiary education institutions under its regulation.
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ASUP noted that the recent efforts of the National Assembly to establish a National Polytechnics Commission through a bill in the House of Representatives is commendable, as it comes after several failed legislative efforts on the same subject in the past.
However, the union says it is surprising that as the bill awaits final reading in the House of Representatives, plans have emerged to establish a commission for technical
education.
ASUP says the name change move is a distraction and it remains committed to the unbundling of the current mixture of over 700 institutions under the NBTE and the extraction of tertiary institutions from the mix to a dedicated commission for effective regulation.
ASUP used the statement to call on Federal Ministry of Education to maintain a consistent position on the issue, noting that polytechnics need to have its own commission like the universities and the colleges of education, instead of remaining mixed up with vocational and technical education institutions and centres.
(Editor: Okechukwu Eze)
