NewWorld Crèche Opens In Victoria Island Soon

A new crèche is to open in Victoria Island before the end of the year. The crèche is located at Ligali Ayorinde Street, adjacent to the popular Ajose Adeogun Street in Victoria Island Lagos. It is meant to serve workers whose offices are located close to this address  especially nursing mothers who travel from Lagos mainland every morning and find it pretty hard to strike a balance between resuming at their offices at latest 8 o- clock and taking their babies to the crèche, majority of which do not open earlier than 7:00 am. 

According to the spokesperson of NewWorld Crèche, Mrs Ronke Idowu, the facilities on ground at the moment will accommodate about 50 children, so it is a matter of first come first serve. She however added that the facilities will be expanded as soon as there is the need to take in more babies based on patronage.

Mrs. Idowu was not specific when asked how much will be charged on a child, but mentioned that amount per child will be in the neighborhood of fifty or sixty thousand naira per month. In her words, "The class of customers we are expecting to patronize our crèche are those with exquisite taste for excellent services, and we are poised to exceed the limit of their expectations because  we have facilities and human resources that match their taste. We will open as early as 6: 30am and our doors will remain opened until 9:00pm in the evening. Our customers need only to bring their children to us in the morning and come back for them whenever they close from the office. Trained professionals are available to give adequate care to the children". 

The management of NewWorld Crèche can be reached via the following phone numbers for further enquiries: 08087053885, 08169417044

Ondo University: VC Threatens To Break Strike

Adekunle Ajasin University Akungba-Akoko (AAUA), in Ondo State

The Vice-Chancellor of Adekunle Ajasin University Akungba-Akoko (AAUA), in Ondo State, Prof. Femi Mimiko on Wednesday said the institution may pull out of the ongoing Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU)'s strike if the federal government and the union refuse to resolve before the end of this month.

Mimiko, who spoke with reporters at World Pharmacists Day held in Akure, the State Capital said the management might be forced to recall the students back to the campus in the next couple of days.

He noted that the ASUU’S strike had affected the institution calendar, which according to him has not been interrupted in the last four years.

The Vice Chancellor noted that there is an ongoing consultation between the workers and the management on the need to resume work, if the strike continues.

According to his words, "interruption of academic calendar is one of the bad side of this strike. As you all know, we have managed the university for the past four years on an interrupted calendar. We are particularly concern about this strike because our academic calendar has been affected.

"We are hoping that ASUU will do the necessary thing to call off the strike as speedily as possible. We have come into the conclusion that in our own interest as a state university to begin to find a way to bring our students back.

“So, we are hoping that the strike will be called off before the end of the month, otherwise we may begin to take some steps that will enable us invite our students back to the campus.

"We have a blue print on the table that we are looking at. The important thing is that we are not going to allow our students to remain at home for so longer than this. If the strike is not over within a few days we may call back our workers.

"Already, we are consulting with the lecturers because the lecturers are not employees of federal government. We do not have any substantive dispute with our workers on campus, so technically they should not have been on strike in the first instance”.

SSANU May Join ASUU In Strike Next Monday

The Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) says it may commence a nationwide strike by Monday if its members are not paid their salaries.

Mr Promise Adewusi, the association’s General Secretary, said this at a press briefing in Abuja on Thursday.

He said that the strike was being considered to protest against the stoppage of the salaries of university workers without any justifiable explanation.

He said that the strike was sequel to a letter written to the Vice-Chancellors of the affected federal universities and Sen. Anyim Pius Anyim, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF).

Adewusi said that letters were similarly written to the Minister of Labour and Productivity, Chief Emeka Wogu, the Minister of State for Education, Chief Nyesom Wike and the Executive Secretary, National Universities Commission (NUC), Prof. Julius Okojie.

He, however stressed that SSANU members would be directed to proceed on the strike if the government refused to pay the salaries.

Adewusi advised the vice-chancellors, the SGF and the ministers of labour and education to take immediate steps to remedy the situation.

“Our members in the effected universities have drawn our attention to the non-payment of their August salaries without any justifiable explanations, even as the month of September has almost drawn to an end.

“We, hereby, place on record that our members had long discharged their obligation as workers for the said month and they, therefore, deserve their pay.

“The non-payment of our members in the universities, when some other federal universities have since paid the August salaries, is viewed by our members as an act of punishment against them for working and this has made them restive.

“We, therefore, demand that the August salaries of our members in those universities be paid to them on or before Friday, Sept. 27, 2013.

“Failure to pay by the stipulated date will be regarded as a conclusive act of aggression against the economic rights and interests of our members,’’ he said.

Adewusi said that the union would be at liberty to direct members to stop work, as they would no longer be in a position to continue to pay for their transport to work.

Also, Alhaji Mohammed Aliyu, the SSANU Chairman in Federal University of Technology, Minna, called on the Federal Government to pay the workers so as to promote industrial harmony.

Aliyu said that it was unfair for the government not to pay their salaries, considering the fact that SSANU had employed dialogue rather than embark on a strike like the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASSU).

He, however, warned the government not to misjudge the union’s peaceful disposition as a sign of weakness.

“Government should not punish us because of ASUU is on strike. If that is what they intend to do, it means they are inviting more trouble in the system.

“We in SSANU believe that through continuous dialogue, contentious issues can be resolved; but for government to refuse to pay our members for two months is a call for confrontation,’’ he said. (NAN)

- See more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2013/09/ssanu-may-join-asuu-strike-scribe/#sthash.iEZlhQsT.dpuf

NASU threatens to go on strike next week

THREE months into the shutting of academic work in the nation’s universities, the non-academic staff of the universities on Tuesday said they would embark on their strike action next week except the government pay the two months’ salary being own them before then.

General Secretary, Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions, Mr. Peters Adeyemi, told journalists in Ilorin, Kwara State, that members of the union were being forced into embarking on a strike action by the refusal of the Federal Government to pay their salaries for August and September.

The NASU scribe said, “NASU will start its own strike next week because we have been working and government has refused to pay our salaries. For us, it does not make sense to continue to keep the system running when we are not paid our salary. The reason for this is not known to us.

“Workers in all federal universities are not paid their salary right now and that is big challenge. Government has not paid our salary for August and as we are talking now, today is September 24, they are effectively owing us two months’ salary and there’s no way we can continue to do this work with empty stomach, while they go about running around the globe with heavy stomach.”

Adeyemi, who spoke during NASU’s National Executive Council meeting on Tuesday, said the union had displayed maturity in handling its grievances but that the government was pushing the members to the wall. He said NASU had shied away from joining the three-month-old strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities, though the non-academic staff had been having their own grouse with the Federal Government.

Adeyemi said the government had not explained to them why their August and September salaries were yet to be paid. He said that the union had been reluctant on embarking on strike since many Nigerians felt uncomfortable with the incessant strikes in the nation’s tertiary institutions.

He, however, said that members of the union could not continue to work while being inflicted with hunger by the non-payment of their salaries.

Adeyemi said, “We we think as Nigerians and parents, we don’t have to unnecessarily ground the system. But if you take this our maturity and level-headedness to mean stupidity, then of course, we are running out of patience.

“Nigerians would have known that we deliberately did not want this continuous disruption of academic activities because, of course, Nigerians are complaining that those of us in the academic world have continuously ruined the future of students by going on to many strikes imposed on us by the government.  “That is one of the reasons why this time around we did not want to necessarily go on strike, but government is pushing us to that point and Nigerians will have no reason not to understand our position if we start the strike by next week.”

We have a serious situation in our university system but it looks like the Federal Government does not view it that way. May God save our nation.

Culled from punch newspaper

Students storm Lagos metropollis, 'begging' for charity

 Today is the turn of students of Yaba College of Technology (Yaba Tech) to go ragging for charity, and many of them are on the streets of Lagos to raise fund by 'begging'. This act of students ragging for charity has its roots outside Nigeria and dated back to the last century.

University Rag societies are student-run charitable fundraising organizations that are widespread in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Most universities in the UK and Ireland, as well as some in South Africa and the Netherlands have a Rag. In some universities Rags are known as Charities Campaigns, Charity Appeals, Charity Committees, or Carnivals, but they all share many attributes.

It is not known where the term "Rag" originates in this context, but it is thought to be from the Victorian era when students took time out of their studies to collect rags to clothe the poor. The verb rag means to badger or pester someone, and early Rags collectors may have ragged passers-by until they made a donation.

Much more recently, acronyms have been invented for RAG to stand for "Raise and Give", "Raise A Grand" or "Raising and Giving"; these are , purportedly coined to convince a manager in a large charity of the value of working with student fundraisers.

The first Rag in South Africa was started at the University of Pretoria in 1925. The students took to the streets in parade that still exists today and is known as the Procession. During this parade, where they build floats, they carry cans and ask the spectating public to make donations.

Ragging is well structured in most Nigerian higher institutions. It is tagged “Rag Day” and held as an annual event when students take to the streets in tattered clothes holding out sealed cans to passers-by and  begging for money. The can carries a small opening on the lid through which money can enter into the can but you need to open the lid to get money out.

At the close of the exercise all the participants return the cans to the Student Union secretariat for the gathering of the collections, which are spent strictly on charity.

 

 

FG Can Borrow To Resolve ASUU Strike –VC

The Vice-Chancellor, Al-Hikmah University, Ilorin, Kwara State, Prof. Sulyman Abdulkareem, in this interview with SUCCESS NWOGU, speaks on the nation’s university system, especially with regard to the ongoing strike embarked upon by lecturers in public universities

How has the journey been at the Al-Hikmah University?

I am grateful to God that things are working out well in the university. Just last Saturday, we had our third convocation. We graduated 506 students and 14 of them had First Class, while 124 of them obtained Second Class Upper Division. From a population of about 70 students at inception in 2005/2006 academic session, the school has grown to 3,420 students currently. The first convocation we had was two years ago and it was a combination of three sets where we graduated 454 students. Last year, we graduated only one set and this third set. I thank God because the ongoing strike embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union of Universities would have affected it.

What’s the effect of the strike on private universities

I have observed that any time any school is on strike, whether it is that of ASUU or any other strike, students normally do not go home. They visit their friends in other institutions. So, there is no way any VC can feel safe when there is strike going on because those students that will not go home will come to other universities to either influence behaviour or at least, look for shelter. That is why, every time there is strike, vice-chancellors are concerned about happenings in their schools. Again, I was worried when I read in the newspapers that the National Association of Nigerian Students suggested that private universities should be disturbed so that the Federal Government would be more concerned about the ongoing ASUU strike.

How did you receive NANS threat?

It was not a delight, of course. I can appreciate their concern, but I feel that they should realise that private universities are actually paying already for continuity of non-strike on campuses. That is why private university owners cannot afford to renege or delay negotiation with their staff because they do not have subvention or contributions from federal or state government.

What is your take on the prolonged strike and the teachers’ demand?

The Federal Government should look for ways to prevent strike at all costs. I realised that we may be saying that we do not have limitless funds to run universities; but we do know the number of universities we have. My prayer is that they will take it as a responsibility to make sure that the main actors on campus, in this case, the lecturers, must be satisfied such that there will be no recurrence of strike for good. The striking teachers are talking about things needed to give quality education to their students. As a parent, I want the Federal Government to do everything possible to meet ASUU’s demand because if they are asking for something beyond reasonable, I can understand the Federal Government not providing them. But if they are asking that provisions be such on the campuses that the very best of education is given to our students, I feel the Federal Government should please meet these demands. The striking teachers are saying they want to meet with the global expectations and I believe that should also be of concern to the Federal Government.

Are you then justifying the strike?

These are the demands agreed upon as far back as 2009, according to ASUU. I do not think that it should drag on indefinitely. The Federal Government should look for ways of meeting these demands, even if it means taking a loan. They have taken loans to do some laudable programmes in the past. If they do it for the education sector and our youth, I do not think it is too much a sacrifice. My prayer is that God gives the Federal Government the wisdom and wherewithal to meet these demands so that university education can move on.

If FG meets about 70 per cent of their demands, would you advise ASUU members to resume work while negotiations for the remaining demands continue?

I believe that if the FG meets 70 or 80 per cent of their demands, Nigerians will prevail on ASUU members to go back to work. Right now, the authorities have only met 30 per cent of their demands. This is far from the demands. My prayer is that the leadership of this country and the supervising minister of education will sit down and look for ways of coming up with higher provisions to meet the ASUU demands.

Culled from punch newspapper

ASUU Strike - Should University Funding Come from Parents?

The industrial action embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has entered into its third month and there seems not to be an end to it on sight. The union is holding tenaciously to its demands while the federal government appears to have ignored the issue. Popular reactions are now shifting away from the present strike action towards a permanent solution to the incessant re-occurrence of strikes by the union. Some schools of thought are of the opinion that government involvement in higher education in Nigeria is too high to the detriment of the other levels of education such as primary and post primary, and this is partly responsible for the undue hikes in the cost of private education in the country especially primary and secondary schools. Others stakeholders in he educational sector are of the opinion that funding the Universities should be the exclusive responsibility of the government. If the government claims it does not have the wherewithal to meet ASUU demands now, are there possibilities that these needs(which are recurrent) will consistently be met in the future? If this is not guaranteed to happen, should we then adopt "ASUU STRIKE" as part of university education in Nigeria or are their pragmatic ways and means of resolving these problems permanently? Some have opined that while primary and secondary education may be free to secure every child the right to basic education and indeed I agree absolutely with this opinion, there is no such thing as free tertiary education anywhere in the world and Nigeria cannot be an exemption. Truth is, a good university education is expensive and pretending to make it look otherwise is playing the ostrich and will continue to amount to giving our students substantially substandard education with the implication of churning out half baked graduates. That is the status quo with the resulting effect of employers rating our graduates as unemployable or in other cases grossly under-employed. What is your view -SHOULD NIGERIAN STUDENTS PAY FOR UNIVERSITY EDUCATION IN GOVERNMENT OWNED UNIVERSITIES?

One laptop per child: This is the clamour the world over. Are we keying in in Nigeria?

Nicaragua: Free computers for 30,000 students: Program offers computers with educational applications to children at 104 schools in low-income neighborhoods.

Since 2009, 30,000 students from 104 schools in low-income neighborhoods in Nicaragua have received free XO computers through the One Laptop per Child program, offered through the Zamora Terán Foundation. (Elmer Martínez/AFP) MANAGUA, Nicaragua – At least 30,000 students from low-income neighborhoods in Nicaragua now attend school with more than just pencils, notebooks and dreams in their backpacks. They also have computers. Since its creation in 2009, the One Laptop per Child program, which is being carried out by theZamora Terán Foundation, has provided XO laptops to students and 900 teachers at 104 schools in low-income neighborhoods in Nicaragua. The XO is a laptop designed specifically for learning, featuring all of the benefits of a conventional computer. It offers 52 educational activities, Internet connectivity and an internal camera, according to Félix Garrido, the director of education and operations at the Zamora Terán Foundation. The goal is to transform education in Nicaragua, where only 56% of students finish grade school, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). Another goal is to expand public access to the Internet, given only 15% of the population of six million are connected, according to Garrido. Nicaragua is ranked 125th among 144 countries in the capacity to utilize information technology and communications to improve the economy and the population’s well-being, according to the Global Information Technology Report 2013. The project has helped keep children in the classroom. In 2012, the retention rate was 97.32%, according to a Zamora Terán Foundation study that was supported by the Ministry of Education. Prior to the program’s implementation, the rate was about 85%. Julio José Ramos Mendieta, 8, calls himself a computer genius. The third-grade student at San Francisco de Asís School in Diriamba, 45 kilometers south of Managua, received an XO three years ago. It was his family’s first computer. “I type using all of my fingers. It was hard at first, but not anymore. I practice every day,” he said. “With this computer, I can play games, read stories and do my homework. I’m also teaching my cousin, who is 5 years old. When we grow up, I want us to be able to work in an office and have computers.” The laptop has changed the lives of all of his family members. Mendieta’s mother Bertha, 38, who has three other children, began studying and found that information in the computer’s hard drive helped her with her work. Increasing enrollment The San Francisco de Asís School has participated in the Zamora Terán Foundation’s program since 2010. Today, 85% of the school’s 550 students have a computer, said Martha Patricia Hernández, the school’s director. “Enrollment is up 15% since we started providing the computers because the children get excited about receiving a device like this,” Hernández said.”[Getting a computer would be almost impossible outside the program because of how much the equipment costs in Nicaragua. The cheapest units are about US$400, which is unaffordable for most of the population.” In Nicaragua, the minimum monthly wage in the agricultural sector is $2,421 Nicaraguan córdobas (US$95), while in construction, which offers higher salaries, it is $5,470 córdobas (US$216). The One Laptop per Child program has been implemented in 25 countries. In Nicaragua, it has been introduced in the cities of Managua, León and Masaya. The program’s growth has been made possible through donations of more than US$6 million by 60 companies, NGOs and individuals, Garrido said. Teachers become more tech savvy The teachers and directors also receive an XO, allowing for more modern educational practices in the classroom because teachers can conduct research, stay updated and become more innovative, Hernández said. One of the programs is a virtual library with content related to each school subject. “The teachers have to document their lesson plans with the XO,” Hernández said. “It’s a major challenge because some of us, due to our age and experience, struggle to use the technology.” The XO facilitates comprehension and language skills among first-grade students using a program called Hablar con Sara (Talk to Sara). The application alerts students if the word they’ve written is wrong, simplifying the reading process, Hernández said. Project scope and goals Each school has a Wi-Fi connection that allows students to complete their tasks. The system is installed at no cost to the school, through agreements with Internet providers. Teachers also work with students to bolster computer knowledge. While Garrido said officials are pleased with the results, he acknowledged that the job has just started, as officials want to give all of the country’s 600,000 grade school students an XO. When will this start happening in our schools in Nigeria?

Which school should be more expensive

Parents are at it again, struggling hard to get school feels paid. The number of public schools is on the increase and so is the fees they charge. When will our public schools ever come alive again, or are they dead never to rise again?

Some proprietors charge above 1million naira over a single secondary school student for only one session. No university in Nigeria charges as much.

In my opinion I don't think secondary education should be more expensive than university education for whatever reason. Does this happen in other countries?

Which is better?: Which School Is Better?

Which is better?: Which School Is Better?