The virtual matriculation organised by the Vice-Chancellor of Osun State University, Professor Labode Popoola has been described as a scam by The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) on Saturday.
According to the Union, the Vice-Chancellor was aiming to use the virtual matriculation exercise which was attended by only principal officers of the institution to get financial favour from the federal government.
ASUU further stated that its strike action was ongoing to get the federal government to commit funds to infrastructure, including Information Communication Technology which is central to online delivery mode.
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The union in a statement signed by it’s Ibadan Zonal Coordinator, Professor Ade Adejumo, described the virtual matriculation by the university as a charade.
Adejumo in the statement emphasized that the university has succeeded in exposing the hapless students whose parents are experiencing non-payment of salaries, amputated salaries, disengagement and rightsizing due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic ravaging the world to the exploitation of cyber cafe operators.
He noted that poor students do not have the wherewithal to cope with financial demands of online learning stressing that this is part of the reasons ASUU is currently on strike, to make the government fund the revitalisation of infrastructure in Universities, including ICT. Adejumo maintained that many public varsities have weak to non-existence ICT infrastructure adding that the government must fund ICT infrastructure if it is interested in e-learning delivery, Post COVID-19.
Adejumo said, “In the UNIOSUN’s Vice-Chancellor’s heart of heart, can he honestly beat his chest that all the students of that University have the wherewithal to key into his e-learning platform? Moreso, given the fact that the majority of the students are from very humble backgrounds, is this policy, not a ploy to shut out such students from accessing teaching and learning interaction?
“Mr Vice-Chancellor should come out clearly to tell the nation what his real motives are? We suspect the motivation here is financial rather than altruistic. Is this another antic to undermine ASUU that the VC knows is currently on strike? To this, we say, anyone who works at cross-purposes with our Union’s patriotic struggle to improve funding of public universities, is an enemy of the people. Anyone, in the guise of being a Vice-Chancellor, who subverts the current struggle of the union, through organising a phoney teaching arrangement, which the Nigerian public universities cannot effectively deliver, is living in self-deceit and a fool’s paradise.
“But for ASUU’s historic struggles, will characters like Prof. Labo Popoola have any meaningful public university to preside over as Vice-Chancellors? For the avoidance of doubt, this struggle will succeed like others before it to the eternal shame of characters in the mould of the Vice-Chancellor under reference here.”
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