Still on ASUU vs Government 2013-09-09 23:00:51 One of the major problems with planning and critical assessment of events in Nigeria is the dearth of relevant data, due to lack of institutional memory, that is, the storage of information for future recall and reuse. This shortcoming has led to the incomplete assessment of the ongoing ASUU strike. In order to fill this void, I provided in this column, two weeks ago, a brief historical background to the uneasy relationship between ASUU and the Federal Government since 1978. Although the main target of ASUU’s strikes has been the Federal Government, state governments are implicated because the academic staff of state universities are also members of ASUU. That’s why states are under pressure to implement whatever agreement is reached between ASUU and the Federal Government, especially on wages and allowances. There have been two broad categories of reactions to the ongoing ASUU strike, both of which could benefit from historical knowledge. Category 1 consists largely of those who blame ASUU for the strike and, therefore, urge the union to call it off. Their argument is threefold: (a) that students and their parents bear the brunt of ASUU’s suspension of classes; (b) that there are “other” ways of getting the government to act, without going on strike; and (c) that the Federal Government has responded well in the past by increasing lecturers’ wages and allowances, as if ASUU’s struggles all over the years have been devoted to increased wages and allowances alone. True, the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo (1999-2007) increased university subvention, salaries, and allowances. However, the extent of the rot in public universities and the high rate of inflation dwarfed the value of those increases. Even more importantly, the increase in subvention has not been sustained, while the allowances remain largely unpaid, even after renegotiation with subsequent administrations. Some have also cited the Needs Assessment Committee set up to look into the problems facing the universities as evidence of good faith by the government. However, ASUU’s central role in getting the committee established seems to have been forgotten. Besides, two questions need to be asked: What did the government do with the Needs Assessment Report, submitted in November 2012, besides setting up another committee to review it? And would the government have taken further action had ASUU not engaged in a full-blown strike? As I write, the original report itself has not even been made available to the university authorities (Council members and vice-chancellors) so they may begin to brace themselves for change. To be sure, the Jonathan administration has not totally neglected education. The problem is that its actions have often been sporadic and misdirected. How else could one interpret the recent establishment of 12 additional Federal Universities or the very idea of Mega Universities, each of which is expected to admit up to 200,000 students, when existing universities are in a state of decay? Who will teach the students, when existing universities are grossly understaffed? Conceptual fluctuations are particularly rampant in the overall educational system. Within the last four years alone, the educational system has fluctuated from 6-3-3-4 to 9-3-4, and back to 6-3-3-4, with one modification. Five-year olds will now have a year of Early Childhood Education, and the new structure will be 1-6-3-3-4. It was as if the change in structure and the inclusion of five-year olds would suddenly mend the decay and improve standards across the educational system. Category 2 critics consists mainly of those who support the strike and, therefore, urge the government to implement its agreement with the union in order to end its industrial action as soon as possible. Their central argument is twofold: (a) that the Federal Government has been largely unresponsive to ASUU’s demands and has even reneged on previous agreements and Memoranda of Understanding with the union and (b) that it has neglected education for far too long, while spending billions on nonproductive ventures and condoning widespread corruption. It is not far-fetched to argue that the total amount of money (about N1 trillion) that the Federal Government has agreed since 2009 to make available for the revitalisation of public universities is less than the amount (a) that the Federal Government has lost in oil revenue to theft and misappropriation within the past one year; (b) that the Jonathan administration paid out, in some cases to non-existent companies, in misappropriated subsidy funds in one year alone; and (c) that about 500 Federal lawmakers have shared among themselves in jumbo pay since 2005. Against these backgrounds, the recent release to public universities of N100 billion for infrastructural development and N30 billion for earned allowances are nothing but token responses to the previously agreed sums of N1 trillion and N89 billion, respectively. How can the universities plan effectively and adequately execute programmes, when the funds promised by federal or state governments are either inadequate, partially withheld, or not forthcoming at all? Equally distasteful is the Federal Government’s top-down approach, in which University Governing Councils and vice-chancellors, all political appointees, are being used to get the striking lecturers back to work, instead of discharging its constitutional educational functions and contractual obligations. It recalls the tactic of the Peoples Democratic Party, which, after flouting its own constitution, ordered dissatisfied members to bury their grievances, without redress, or go to jail! What kind of democracy does that? True, as the The Punch Editorial of July 18, 2013, pointed out, university administrators and lecturers are also partly culpable for the internal rot within the universities. However, it must be equally acknowledged that those internal problems are rooted in under- funding, under-staffing, and under- equipping of the universities as well as the devaluation of education by successive governments. The end product is the substandard environment under which teaching and learning are now taking place. Compared to my undergraduate experiences at Ife in the 60s and teaching experiences in the same university in the 70s up to the early 80s, my recent return to the Nigerian university system has been like being catapulted from a cozy swimming pool unto an arid desert. The question is: If university lecturers cannot successfully draw the government’s attention to the rot, and get it to implement its own agreement with their union, then who will? This is not to say that ASUU is a perfect union. The adaptive strategies employed by some members of the union in response to the rot have not been helpful to their cause. Besides, ASUU and its union branches have often failed to sufficiently educate major stakeholders and the press about the need for strikes and their expected benefits. Even its website is inadequate and difficult to navigate. These shortcomings have engendered the widespread misconception that ASUU has been fighting for wages and allowances at the expense of students and other stakeholders. This misconception has submerged the big picture of ASUU’s long-standing struggles for the revitalisation of the universities and the government’s failure to fulfil its obligations. ASUU’s shortcomings and the government’s failings notwithstanding, all hope is not lost. There are still outstanding scholars and administrators here and there in our universities, who can lead the way out of the present doldrums. Some private universities, like Leads University in Ibadan, and some newly established state universities, like the Ondo State University of Science and Technology, Okitipupa, are setting the standards and fast becoming the agents of stability in Nigerian university education. Yet, given infrastructural, environmental, financial, and policy constraints, it is doubtful whether the existing generation of outstanding scholars could be reproduced. If the declining trend in our public universities were to be reversed, then we should all support the ongoing ASUU strike.
Posted on: Tue, 10 Sep 2013 06:20:39 +0000
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