Education
ASUU Strike: Parents Lament Effects On Students, Urge Govt’s Intervention
By: Lady Godknows Ogbulu
One week into the four-week warning strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), to compel the federal government to heed to its demands, parents of affected students have condemned the action, feeling the effects on the students.
A cross section of parents who spoke to The Tide in PortHarcourt, yesterday, said the incessant strike action by ASUU has affected the students adversely in their academic pursuits.
A retired civil servant and father of a year four Accounting student, Dr Nwokeocha Smith said, this whole thing is becoming worrisome. How can a student who is to use four years for his course of study now use six years. Some of them could no longer go for the National Youth Service Corps all because of this on and off strike actions by ASUU”.
A businessman, Fred Manoah,who decried the situation said, “we need these children to graduate so they can now help us especially considering the economic situation we are into”.
“I wish that ASUU will find another way of settling this matter with the federal government because at the end of the day, the government does not have anything to lose since their children are in schools abroad”, Manoah said.
Another parent and mother of two undergraduates, Mrs Miriam Miebaka Horsefall, said “it is not funny at all. Some of these students are at the verge of graduating and then this strike. It is a warning strike, yes but who knows if it will later last for another one year or more and the effect, devastating. You know, it is said that when two elephants are fighting, the grass suffers”.
According to her, the incessant strike actions by the ASUU are capable of preventing young graduates from gaining employment.
In her words, “now that there is age limit in employment, these children need to graduate as at when due and gain employment in order to help themselves and their parents too”.
The parents unanimously called on the government to intervene, not just to save the situation of the children and students but the educational and future of the country.
Parents and guardians of students studying various disciplines at the David Umahi Federal University of Health Sciences, Uburu, Ebonyi State have cried out over the jacking of tuition fees by management of the university and urged Minister of Education to urgently intervene on the matter.
A statement released by the Bursary Department of the institution indicates that Medicine and Surgery has increased of 42.86% from N1, 30, 000 in the 2023/2024 academic session to N1.5 Million in the new 2025/2026 session while Pharmacy and Nursing Sciences were both jacked up from N730, 000 in the 2023/2024 academic session to N1, 50, 000 in the new 2025/2026 academic session which represents approximately 43.84% increment.
Reacting to the new development, a business man who Chief Ozor Festus who claimed that his two children both gained admission to study Medicine and Surgery and Pharmacy, lamented that despite the brilliance of his children that made them gain admission on merit, it is now seeming like a curse as he cannot afford to cough out nearly N3M to process the entrance of his children for a Federal University he felt was funded by the Federal Government of Nigeria.
“A lot of parents are grumbling over the school fees for new students because it is a Federal University and not a private university. Even in private universities, the fees are not this outrageous.”, he said
He said although the fees covered their accommodations, it was yet on a very high side. “We are begging the Minister for Education to come and help us bring this high fees down to where other parents like us can afford.
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Organizations like the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) have implemented programmes that directly target impoverished communities, ensuring that girls receive the support they need to attend school.
By removing financial obstacles, these grants empower families to invest in their daughters’ futures, fostering a culture where girls’ education is valued and prioritised. However, cultural norms and societal expectations often hinder girls from pursuing education.
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The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has asked the Federal Government to finalise all agreements entered with university teachers or risk an industrial crisis.
The lecturers decried what they described as the flip-flop disposition of successive governments towards collective bargaining, which has created an atmosphere of distrust and has taken extra efforts and energy on the part of the current Federal Government to dispel.
In a statement entitled ‘Act Now To Avert The Looming Crisis’ and signed by ASUU President, Prof. Chris Piwuna, the union said, “Nothing illustrates this antipathy better than the frustrated attempts to conclude the renegotiation of the 2009 FGN-ASUU Agreement, despite submission of a draft agreement by the Alhaji Yayale Ahmed committee to government since December 2024, eight clear months ago.
“Every major dispute ASUU has had with governments since 2012, when the 2009 Agreement was due for renegotiation, emanated from failure to respect the provisions of the signed document on conditions of service, funding, university autonomy and academic freedom, and
other matters, including the review of the laws governing the National Universities Commission (NUC) and Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB).
“Yet elite Nigerians are quick to blame the universities for ‘producing unemployable graduates’ and failure to initiate innovative research for addressing the country’s problems, our members feel forgotten, shamed and demoralised by past and present governments.
“ASUU has ceaselessly warned owners (government and visitors) of public universities – the Federal and State Governments – of the
Consequences of breeding a disempowered, dissatisfied, and disorientated intellectual workforce.
For the umpteenth time, ASUU invites all genuine patriots to prevail on Nigeria’s Federal and State Governments to address all lingering labour issues in the Nigerian University System to avert another looming industrial crisis.”