The National Universities Commission (NUC) on Tuesday disclosed that preparations were in top gear to reopen the universities after the forced closure due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The commission also said efforts are ongoing to resolve the strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities’ (ASUU) that threatens to further delay the resumption of academic activities in the universities.
The Executive Secretary of NUC, Abubakar Rasheed. said this during a press conference on the contributions of Nigerian universities to the national response to COVID-19 in Abuja on Tuesday.
Nigeria closed its tertiary institutions along with lower schools in March due to the coronavirus outbreak.
Mr. Adamu, who was represented at the event by the deputy executive secretary Academics, Suleiman Yusuf, said the Commission is working with universities to discuss preparation that should be in place before reopening.
According to him, universities not under ASUU watch can go back to classes once they have put the necessary guidelines in place.
“We gave a template to vice-chancellors of all universities requesting them to suggest to us what kind of protocols and strategies they are putting in place in the various institutions. We are collecting some of the responses which have already started coming in and at the end of the day the picture should emerge about the extent to which our universities are prepared to reopen for academic activities,” he said.
ASUU commenced its warning strike on March 9 and declared an indefinite strike on March 23.
ASUU is embarking on the strike over the non-payment of salaries of their members who failed to enroll in the federal government’s IPPIS, a payroll software mandated for all public officials.
Source: PremiumTimesng.com