By Hassan Zaggi
The Management of the Federal College of Education (Technical) Umunze, Anambra State has described as false the recent media reports alleging non-payment of TETFund Teaching Practice Allowance to lecturers in the institution since 2017.
The College said the claim by the Chairman, Colleges of Education Academic Staff Union (COEASU), Dr Churchill Okonkwo, that lecturers in the institution have not been paid their TETFUND Teaching Practice Allowance since 2017 was spurious and a mere distortion of reality.
It would be recalled several online platforms and newspapers had quoted Dr Okonkwo of alleging that the management did not care that the lecturers were owed the TETFund Intervention since 2016, neither were they sympathetic to the fact that Teaching Practice (TP) mobilisation hadnt been paid since 2018.
Reacting to the report, the Provost, Dr Tessy Okoli, said the College has been enjoying TETFund intervention, with the 2021 Teaching Practice Supervision Allowance paid to the lecturers on September 7, 2021.
While presenting evidence of payment showing the disbursement of the fund to the teaching staff, the Provost wondered how the COEASU Chairman, who benefitted from the paid allowance, could make a false claim before the public to tarnish the image of his workplace.
She insisted the false narrative was mischievously contrived to garner support among teaching staff and engender hatred against the College Management.
The Provost explained that on assumption of office on May 17, 2017, she observed that teaching staff of the College were unable to access the TETFund TP Allowance because COEASU members failed to comply with the required guidelines in the submission of names of beneficiaries.
“TETFund has a guideline which institutions must follow to access the fund.
“When I came in, I learnt that the College was not accessing the TETFund Teaching Practice Allowance because members of COEASU breached this template and the intervention was stopped.
“Through consultation with TETFund, we were able to sort out the problem and the 2021 TETFund TP Allowance was paid in September, last year.
“I am surprised that the same COEASU that created the problem in the first place now went to the media to accuse the College Management of not being sympathetic to their plight,” she said.
The Provost said the action of the COEASU Chairman was tantamount to biting the fingers that fed him, explaining that his mission to shut down the College and stop students examination crumbled shamefully, and he resorted to cheap blackmail and peddling falsehood to discredit the leadership of the College.
“The records are there in the College. I published the record of payments made to COEASU by this current administration on the College platform for the teaching staff to see. Till date, none of them has raised any objection,” she explained.
The Provost said the College has benefitted immensely from various TETFUND interventions.
According to her, TETFUND has given the College a new face, with several completed building projects in the institution and modern facilities in place.
She said TETFund Academic Staff Training and Development (AST&D) has greatly enhanced the quality of teaching staff in the College by sponsoring many lecturers for postgraduate programmes in both local and foreign universities.
The Provost, however, frowned at the malicious publication by the COEASU Chairman, stressing that it doesn’t reflect the true position of things in the College.
The Provost warned peddlers of false news to desist from their dishonest trade. She noted that despite the ongoing examination in the College with supervision by teaching staff, the COEASU Chairman had sought means to discredit the exercise through sponsored media publications.
“Even when we published pictures of our matriculation ceremony and students writing their examination on different platforms, he kept on sponsoring media publications of strike and urged parents to withdraw their children from the school”, she said.
She accused Churchill of coercing some lecturers to join the strike to massage his bloated ego.
The Provost explained that the Teaching Practice Mobilisation, which COEASU was agitating for, was a non-statutory payment, which the lean resources of the College couldn’t carry at the present time. She recalled that efforts to resolve the dispute peacefully through dialogue were scuttled by the aggressive posturing of the COEASU Chairman and his cohorts bent on importing crisis into the College.
“The compulsive demand on the Management to borrow money from external sources to make non-statutory payment was a clear breach of official guideline, which would have been queried by our regulators.
“We negotiated for more time, so that payment could be made when resources are available in the College but the COEASU exco remained adamant.
“Many of the lecturers refused to join the strike because they saw reasons with the Management and took into cognisance the arrears of allowances paid by this administration. I am happy to say that the examination is going on smoothly, and other staff unions in the College have shown their solidarity and support,” she added. The Provost said contrary to the mudslinging by the COEASU Chairman, the College was rated the best among other Colleges during the SERVICOM Assessment Exercise in 2019. She said the College would continue to maintain a shining reputation under her leadership.
