ASUU Disagree With Ministers Of Education Scrapping Of POST UTME

The Academic Staff Union of
Universities, ASUU, on Wednesday defies the Minister Of Education
directive for tertiary institutions to scrap the Post-UTME, for admission
of candidates for the 2016/2017
academic session, he said the quality of tertiary education in the country can improve if the institutions are allowed to regulate their students admission
process.

ASUU President, Comrade Ogunyemi Biodun, said such freedom would
enhance the quality of education.
Recall that at a recent joint policy
meeting to decide the cut off mark for students seeking admission into the universities, the government announced the scrapping of Post-(UTME).

Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu had threatened to sanction any tertiary institution caught conducting examinations under any guise to admit students.
He further directed tertiary institutions that had collected money from candidates for such purposes to immediately refund.

The ASUU boss told NAN that such
directive encroached on the autonomy of the institutions.
“I think government should give these institutions the chance to regulate themselves,” he said.
“They should decide for themselves, the process they dim fit to admit theirbstudents. The Senate of universities for example, should decide on the processbthey want to use in selecting candidates.

“We do not think it’s right for
government to decide the method of
screening of the candidates, indeed, we want to attain some level of sanity and quality in the system.”

He  added that government could only come into the process by
putting in place the necessary guidelines as part of their oversight functions.

According to him, it will not also be easy for institutions that had already collected money for the conduct of the post-UTME or screenin to refund it.

He added that this was because such money could have been diverted to other purposes.
Biodun noted that most universities
were under-funded and therefore, might have used some of the money to attend urgent needs of the institution.

“Some of the arguments raised in this entire is that tertiary institutions were using the conduct of such examination to make money,” he said. “But the truth is, these institutions are poorly funded. If universities for example are properly funded, will the vice-chancellors be looking for other means of making money?

“In the last seven months, university
workers have been receiving incomplete salaries.
“When situations like this arise, the
managements didnt have any choice than to look inwards and seek means of meeting such needs.

“And one of such plan  is by
conducting such examination.”
Ogunyemi noted that the state
universities were worst hit for many of them had yet to receive subvention in the last one year.