NIGERIAN UNIVERSITY EDUCATION, THE ASUU AND THE FG: MY CANDID OPINION

 

Introduction:

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) is in her 5^th week of industrial action, after rolling over an earlier warning strike declared on 14^th February, 2022. The ASUU asserted that the strike is due to the failure of the Federal Govt. to honour agreement it entered with the union. Some of the major issues tabled by the union for a very long time include but are not limited to:

·         Renegotiation of 2009 ASUU-FG agreement: the Renegotiation of the 2009 agreement talks about the upward review of lecturers’ conditions of service which includes salaries, allowances, retirement etc.

·         Revitalisation of Nigerian Universities: Revitalisation of Nigerian universities is a financial commitment between the FG and the ASUU which demands that the FG inject money (amounting to one trillion naira) into Nigerian universities over a period of 5 years (from 2010). This money when released (200bn/year) will be used by universities in addressing an area in which each particular university is deficient.

·         Payment of Earned Academic Allowance (EAA): the EAA is allowances which the university lecturers earned through excess workload in terms of number of students per class, number of courses taken, number of students supervised, and academic responsibilities held etc. The FG owes the lecturers a backlog of EAA from 2016 to 2020, whereas a certain percentage of the 2021 EAA was offset by the FG.

·         Proliferation of new universities: Proliferation of new universities sought to stop the rampant establishment of universities in the country, mostly by state government; without a clear blueprint for its financing. In the end, this puts more burden and pressure on the Tertiary Education Fund (TETFUND).

·         Visitation panels to universities: the demand for visitation panel by ASUU looks to tackle the problem of mismanagement of funds, resources and situations by university management. The visitation panel supposed to, at a time interval, visit their respective universities to conduct an audit report and thereafter, submit their reports to the chief visitor (the President for Federal universities and the Governor for state universities); with recommendations based on their report.

On the above points, the ASUU and the FG have failed to find a common ground. This results in the repeated disruption of the academic activities in our public universities. The Premium times on 14^th November, 2020, reported that: based on data they analysed up to 2020, the ASUU has gone on strike 15 times since 1999; amounting to about 50 months of strike since 1999. The FG is using lack of funds as an excuse to not honouring their promises, while the ASUU is accusing the FG of abandoning the education sector. On the part of the citizens, some are of the opinion that the ASUU is too selfish and demanding, others are of the opinion that the politicians do not care about the education sector; simply because they can afford to take their children to the best universities in the world. Other citizens are those that belong to the ‘I don’t care’ category, either because their children are already in private universities or are not enrolled at all.

The FG, the lecturers, the students and the general public are affected by the incessant strike. So, one question that always pops up is: what is the way forward? Many people are of the opinion that the ASUU should find another way of pressing home their demands. One of such people is the popular analyst, columnist and lawyer, Bulama Bukarti. On 17^th February, 2022, Bulama argued through his tweeter handle that: for 20 years, ASUU has failed to develop an effective strategy to press its demands. Others are of the opinion that the FG should take education serious and honour agreements it entered willingly with the university lecturers. One of such people is Hon. Julius Ihonybere, house of reps member representing Owan fed. constituency. On 10^th March, 2020, he raised a motion that there is need to put an end to ASUU strike that is disturbing public universities. He urged the FG to put an end to the strike by simply honouring their agreements with the ASUU, he went ahead highlighting the sorry state of university libraries, laboratories among others.

MY TAKE

Having highlighted some of the crucial issues, I would like to bring forward my suggestion on the way forward.

First, the major objectives of the tertiary education system are to:

·         Acquire knowledge and wisdom

·         Impart on the youth aim of the social order ( i.e. good character)

·         Acquire leadership, entrepreneur and problem solving skills

If we agree these are the major objectives of the tertiary education, then; the university is not the only tertiary institution that can offer these. We have the monotechnics, polytechnics and the colleges of education in Nigeria. Our teaming youth find placement into these higher institutions and make success stories for themselves.

The number of university admissions can be reduced by introducing tuition fees in our universities. This means only those that can afford the tuition apply for placement into universities. This will enable generation of reasonable revenue from the universities and by extension; the govt financial load is reduced, the universities get better funding, the lecturers get better salaries and the students get quality education through functional and state-of-the-art technologies. This will also put a stop to the problem of establishment of new universities without adequate funding and in turns, reduce the pressure on TETFUND.

The introduction of tuition fee will also reduce the number of graduates produced every year, which will subsequently reduce our unemployment rate. According to a report titled: Nigerian Youth Employment Action Plan 2021-24 of the Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports Development published in August 2021, our unemployment rates are increasing.
According to the report, “As of 2020 (Q2), youth unemployment (15-34 years old) stood at 35%. A further 28% of young people in the labour force were considered underemployed (working 20-39 hours a week) and 37% were working full time (40 or more hours per week).”

CONCLUSION

Payment of tuition fees is not a new thing in developed and developing countries. Whereas some countries have a student loan system to assist with tuition payment, others take tuitions to the bearable minimum according to their economic indices.

 If the FG can put up a robust and effective system that can monitor management, remittance and disbursement of revenues collected from universities and for the universities, our education system can again start competing with other best education practices in the world. We can start attracting foreign students and lecturers again, our researches and innovation will be more impacting and our universities can start climbing up the best university list in the world.