Introduction
Just over a week ago, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) the union of teaching and research staff at Nigeria’s universities declared an indefinite strike action to protest the non-implementation of agreements earlier signed with the Federal Government of Nigeria. The strike action according to the Union is to “save public universities in Nigeria”.
No doubt ASUU through the instrumentality of strike actions have achieved humongous gains not only for the federal universities but also for state owned ones and also for other tertiary educational institutions such as polytechnics and colleges of education. The establishment of institutions such as the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND) which provides support to all levels of public tertiary institutions with funding and scholarships is a cardinal example of the successes of ASUU’s struggles over the past years.
Data reported to have been compiled by a local newspaper show that between 1999 and 2020, “ASUU went on strike for a total of 1,450 days.” In this latest round of strike, ASUU was on strike for 199 days before declaring the strike to be indefinite just over a week ago. The data shows clearly that Nigerian university students are spending more time at home than at the ivory towers. This is the worst state of affairs a nation can find itself that the future of the nation is being damaged irreparably with the Government and University teachers at each other’s throats with the students as the ultimate victims!
Granted that ASUU has gained widespread support over the years in her struggles to better the tertiary education sector in Nigeria, the declaration of an indefinite strike this time around portrays ASUU as lacking situational awareness and strategy. This is because from every indication, the current government have shown cause to believe that they have no interest whatsoever in meeting ASUU’s demands. Because while the government continually blames dwindling revenues as the reason they are unable to implement the agreements signed with ASUU, the same government is dolling out N6trn to ‘subsidise’ a single commodity – petrol. ASUU’s purported demand for N200bn to call off the strike is only 1/30 of the petrol subsidy bill therefore if the government were really intent on resolving the crisis, they would have done so.
ASUU seeing the handwriting on the wall that they are dealing with a government that will not really lose any sleep if ASUU stays on strike forever should have exercised better judgement by suspending the strike, returning students to the classes then await the next government whom from every indication by the 3 forerunning candidates will do better than the current government in giving attention to education. The fear that calling off the strike will give future governments the impetus to ignore ASUU does not really count and ASUU must not reduce the strike as a battle of egos. Indeed, ASUU is now beating a dead horse with the declaration of an indefinite strike.
Suggested ways to solve the perennial ASUU Strike Actions
1. Let every governing council be an employer and pay wages as agreed with each individual employee. It doesn’t make sense that a professor in an expensive city like Abuja or Lagos earns same pay as a professor in Mkar or Oghara! Even within the same university, a professor who is high value and attracting research grants earns same with a professor producing no innovation, how does that make sense! Employees in each university should form unions to press home their demands with their governing councils. The idea of a national union for universities teachers is now obsolete really.
2. To adequately fund universities, let full fees be paid for university education and let government create a students’ loans scheme to ensure that every child that aspires to and qualifies for university education realises their ambition. Students’ loans scheme operates such that the loan is never paid back except the student graduates, gets a job and begins to earn at a particular threshold. Earning at that threshold means the students are now well off enough to contribute their own quota to the education of other students. This is how nations grow and become developed. Creation of the students’ loans board will also tackle the unemployment crisis because people will be employed to administer the scheme.
3. The low quality of graduates in Nigeria today cannot be blamed on poor funding alone. There are some bad eggs within the ranks of the academic staff who are also contributing to the decay through – non-attendances at lectures, pay for grades, sexual harassment of female students, writing projects for students, stealing research grants etc – are just a few of the ills causing the low quality of graduates out of our universities today. If the universities are really serious about quality, then they must start inhouse by clearing the augean stables to rid the citadels of learning of quacks parading as academics.
4. Nigeria will get a new president next year and the question is, what is ASUU doing to strike deals with the presidential candidates regarding adequate funding of education in return for block votes. ASUU is standing by docile, doing nothing to ensure a candidate who values education emerges as president next year because ASUU knows they can send children home indefinitely to fight a president who’s giving nothing to education!
The above are only a few suggestions for getting our university system out of the woods. But the problem we have in Nigeria is that we like our country to be like the UK, US, Canada etc but are totally resistant to the things those nations did/doing to become great. We want everything free and still don’t want to pay taxes! No nation develops without the sacrifices of citizens!
Conclusion
ASUU needs a holistic rethink of her strategy and at this point, recalling the students back to the classrooms is the most thoughtful and pragmatic thing to do.
References:
https://www.cfr.org/blog/nigerian-university-professors-are-strike-again-education-sectors-crisis-transcends-ivory
https://punchng.com/asuu-declares-indefinite-strike/
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