-Mass Comm Lecturer Challenges CRUTECH Students-
A lecturer in the Department of Mass Communication in Cross River University of Technology (CRUTECH), Mrs Edang Yolanda Ekpo Bassey, has challenged students of the university “to hit the protest lanes in their numbers and demand better education and learning conditions”.
She gave the challenge today in a message sent to LinCornellah’s blog, following the blog’s report about the reactions of students of Department of Mass Communication, CRUTECH, to the recently suspended strike action by Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU). That report published yesterday, shows that respondents to an opinion poll mostly expressed concern about the likelihood that constant strike actions would cause them to spend more years in school than the normal duration of their course of study.
Here is Mrs Edang Bassey’s reaction to that report:
“The students are however missing a very crucial point: the power of their voices.”
“It is going to take more than lecturers striking over various work conditions and students complaining about the effects of strikes on their futures. Or the effects of strikes, period.”
“They also need to hit the protest lanes in their numbers and demand better education and learning conditions. They need to hit the streets in parallel, solidarity protest with their lecturers when they strike because the lecturers are ultimately asking for better education terms and conditions for them, for their future.”
“If lecturers are better and appropriately compensated, they’d have job satisfaction and deliver not just more but better. Sorting would take an exit door.”
“If the learning and living conditions on campuses were better, students would concentrate more, actually gain knowledge and become academically competitive. Academic delinquency would also take an exit door.”
“Until our youth and students become like those who know and demand their rights from government and those in authority everywhere, they’ll continue impotently lamenting their wasted youth and underutilized potentials.”
“It is youth who brought about The Arab Spring and The Obama Presidency …
ours mostly rally for materialistic competitions and use social media for self aggrandizement.”
“they busy themselves chasing their tails in subsistence existence and whimpering, forgetting to lift their eyes and observe the Puppet Masters pulling the strings of their impotence while simultaneously siphoning away their Commonwealth.”
Mrs Edang Yolanda Ekpo Bassey is wife of Comrade Bassey Ekpo Bassey, nationally – acclaimed revolutionary former Chairman of Calabar Municipality. He is a renowned journalist and once contested as a Gubernatorial aspirant in Cross River State in 1991, on the platform of the now defunct Social Democratic Party (SDP).
- Cornelius Ellah
Please See Related Post:Â Suspended Strike: Mass Comm Students Count the Cost
Its indeed sad to see that we the youth of nowadays don’t even know our right, talkless of exercising it on certain anormalis of government. We (youth) really don’t know what we’re looking for, that’s why the system is growing worst by the day. No wonder Wale Soyinka stated in one of his piece on national issues that “the youth of this generation is dead on arrival” Ofcourse, we cannot fight because we are morally declined and physically impotent. We need to rise up to the challenge!
True. Like Prof Kevin Ogon Etta constantly said when he was Vice Chancellor of University if Calabar, our students and youths need to take “reasonable action” at all times. We trust that Mrs Edang Bassey is equally calling for “reasonable action”.