The Senior Staff Union in Colleges of Education, Nigeria SSUCOEN has called for the mainstreaming of demonstration schools staff in its entire Colleges of Education (COE).

President of the Union, Danladi Msheliza, disclosed this during a meeting with the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu in Abuja on Friday.

Msheliza said that this was a requirement for graduating of students of primary Education Studies (PES) and Early Childhood Care Education (ECCE).

”I want to bring to your attention a document that emanated from your office dated Dec. 29, 2021 to the Chairman of Salaries and Wages Commission in response to our letter that was written to you because we wrote to you that demonstration schools should not be seen as private entities”

”But when salaries and wages commission wrote to your office to give clarification on the status of possession of schools in colleges of education and the need to be mainstreamed, in your response to them signed by the permanent secretary you stated that the ministry has carefully examined our document”

“And that the 2021 edition of the NCE on minimum standards for Early Child Care and Primary Education Studies should be established in demonstration schools”
                            
“But if the institutions are not able to do so, it should adopt school community of their reach which is also against the content of this document,” he said.

He therefore clarified that there was no 2021 edition of the minimum standards but only had 2020 edition saying the minimum standards had clearly stated that demonstration schools shall be established within the vicinity of colleges.

He called on the minister to also give more prominence to issues of colleges of education especially as it relate to the non-payment of arrears of minimum wages for its staff.

Speaking on the revitalisation fund of the colleges, the president called on the minister to resume the stalled renegotiation of the 2010 FGN/SSUCOEN Agreement.

He added that there was also the need to release the approved revitalisation fund to colleges arising from the NEED Assessment exercise.

Responding, the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, promised to look into the gray areas that the union had brought before him.

On the demonstration of colleges of education, Adamu said that the ministry would constitute a committee to look at the letter and amend necessary areas appropriately.

The Executive Secretary of Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), Sonny Echono, has said the Fund will waive its planned sanction for polytechnic lecturers who collected money for conference attendance but failed to embark on the exercise.

Echono, who stated this in Abuja on Thursday, during a courtesy visit by association of heads of polytechnics and colleges of technology in Nigeria, said, “Many institutions have not been able to access our provision for conference attendance, those that are able to access, some have not attended.”

“Indeed, for those who have not been able to attend their conferences that we are trying to punish or introduce sanction for, we will offer this (Association of Technical Universities and Polytechnics in Africa, ATUPA, conference) opportunity, this window for those who have outstanding, who has collected money that have not used it, we will approve, so that they utilize it and go and attend the conference to take them off the hook of those that will be asked to refund the money they collected without attending the conference.”

While commending the association for ensuring stability in the polytechnic sector, the TETFund boss harped on the need to mass-create innovation hubs and skills development centres in polytechnics to boost the employability of graduates, adding that the Fund would ensure the desired support in that regard.

“Everyone agrees that the work of tomorrow is not so much about certificates as in the skills set that you have. The things you can do and the soft skills; about critical thinking, skills on creativity, the ideas that you have and that is why we must cautiously and progressively create innovation hubs in our polytechnics, that level of manpower is what is required in today’s workforce,” he said.

When I was in the ministry, we received a briefing about an earlier intervention by TETFund in polytechnics and universities in supplying equipment intended to facilitate this and the feedback we had was that most of them were not being utilized, and were not even sure whether they were actually supplied.

“So we have to undertake an audit and to our surprise, we discovered these equipment were supplied and unfortunately, they were lying idle and those that were trained at the time had moved on.”