Kano College of Education Academic Staff Members Begin One-week Warning Strike

By Ibrahim Shuaibu

The Academic Staff Union (COEASU) of Federal College of Education (Tech), Bichi, Kano State, has commenced a one-week warning strike.

The Chairman of the union, Mr. Muhammad Salisu Yunusa, announced this yesterday while briefing journalists, accusing the management of the college under the leadership of Muhammad Bashir Fagge of non-remittance of N25million deducted from the staff multi-purpose cooperative society.

Yunusa alleged that teaching and learning are being conducted under an unbearable condition due to dilapidated infrastructure in the school.

He also alleged that the management of the college has failed to pay legitimate staff allowances, including 10 months peculiar academic allowance, Students Industrial Work Experience Scheme (SIWES) supervision allowance; teaching practice allowance and series of outstanding payment of the centre for permanent education.

According to him, “As at August 2017, the college management had incurred a debt stock of about N80 million, being the cumulative sum of deductions from staff salaries that were not remitted to the college staff cooperative society.

“Academic infrastructures are decaying due to lack of maintenance, and laboratories, workshops and studios are not functioning optimally due to lack of equipment and consumables.

“Insecurity and lawlessness is alarming due to complacency of the current management of the college, while staff morale is low due to the nonpayment of staff allowances and other statutory entitlements among other pressing issues.”

He said the college is yet to issue college graduates their Teachers’ Registration Council (TRCN) certificate and National Certificate in Education (NCE) certificates for 2014/2015 and 2015/2016 sessions.

“The failure to issue TRCN certificates to our former students may be viewed by the public as a corporate fraud, considering the fact that they had paid for the processing of the certificates in advance as part of their NCE III school fees while in college.

“The non-payment of security personnel for about seven months has further threatened the security of lives and property of those at the institution. This situation has culminated in serious theft in the students hostels,” the chairman alleged.

Yunusa, therefore, called on the appropriate authorities to prevail on the management of the college to immediately remit the deducted money back to college’s cooperative society as soon as possible as failure to do so will further worsen the welfare condition of some staff members, some of whom have invested a larger chunk of their life saving in the cooperative society.