Share this @internewscast.com
Some students of Paul University, Awka (PUA), Anambra State, have expressed worries about the incessant strikes embarked upon by the lecturers of the institution.
The private Christian university was founded in 2009 by Bishops of the five ecclesiastical provinces of the Anglican Church East of the Niger to provide undergraduate training in Arts, Natural and Applied Sciences, Social Sciences and Management.
Some of the students who spoke to SaharaReporters said their lecturers had embarked on strike more than three times in 2022, adding that they were feeling frustrated and losing interest in education.
The aggrieved undergraduates accused the management of treating workers and students badly.
They also decried poor hostel facilities in the fully residential institution.
Expressing frustration and anger at the situation, the students called on the regulatory authorities for university education in Nigeria to intervene in their plight.
“They don’t care about their workers or the students. Since last year, our school generator got spoilt, it hasn’t been repaired. If the power company doesn’t bring light or the transformer gets spoilt, we’re left in darkness. There won’t be water as well because we can’t pump water when there’s no light,” a 400-level student of the school lamented on Friday.
“They’ve owed their workers for months now. Lecturers that have no other source of income are not even considered. Lecturers have been on strike severally, thrice this year alone. They make promises but fulfill none. I heard they arrested some lecturers.
“I don’t know what the Anglican Diocese of Awka is doing because students are paying their fees. We pay over N300,000 per semester and we must pay our fees before we’re even allowed into the school compound, yet they keep telling lecturers that students haven’t paid.
“1st semester has been in session since 6th January but we can’t write exams cause they keep going back and forth with the lecturers. It’s just getting too much. We’re suffering and we need help, all of us; students, teaching and non-teaching staff.
“We’ve made complaints to the Vice Chancellor but obviously he doesn’t care. If they don’t know how to run a school, they should sell it so someone else can. The last VC was handling things just fine but this new one that just came in last year is very heartless, yet parades himself as an Anglican Reverend.”
The three phone numbers displayed on the institution’s website for inquiries were switched off as of the time of filing this report.
