Students of Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, LAUTECH, Ogbomosho will return to their classrooms on Monday for the first time in six months.

This followed an announcement on Tuesday by Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, calling off the protracted strike action involving the teachers and other workers of the university.

The students have not resumed academic activities since April when they concluded their 2016/17 first semester examinations.

They will now begin the second semester of the session, months after other universities in Nigeria began the 2017/18 academic year.

Workers of LAUTECH had gone on strike on June 2 over poor funding by the two owner states of the university, Oyo and Osun.

Although the university asked the students to return to school on September 25 after the owner state governments announced that they had resolved the disputes with the workers, the students have not been receiving lectures because the teachers refused to resume.

Dean of Student Affairs of the university, Mr Lukman Jinadu, said in a telephone interview that academic activities will resume officially on Monday as the local branch of ASUU called off their strike after a meeting on Tuesday.

“We are resuming officially on Monday,” Jinadu said.

Mr Oyedeji Ahmed, a 500-level student of Agronomy at the university, said the teachers suspended their strike conditionally in the hope that the council and the management will meet the demands of their union.

“The management has paid their salaries for September and upfront for October and November 2017 but the union is asking for the years the management is owing,” he said.

“We are happy the storm is over, we are resuming lectures by Monday,” Oyedeji said.

The school had been forced to close down earlier in 2015 just before the students were scheduled to begin their examinations.

Subsequently, the two state governments managed to come up with N500 million to settle the workers’ salaries, thus enabling the students to resume briefly and complete the 2015/2016 first semester in April, 2016.

But the money could only cover workers’ salaries for two and a half months, following which the workers again downed tools in June.

Although it reopened briefly in February, there have been no academic activities.

PT