This column had waited on the outcome of the meeting of the National Executive Council (NEC) of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), held on Sunday night. As it was being concluded Monday morning, the news filtered out that the prolonged strike by federal and some state universities had been further extended, as ASUU rejected the terms offered by the federal government. Unfortunately, that decision will further exacerbate the impact of the strike on the health of the university community and parents of university students.
Of course, members of the federal executive and their media howitzers whose wards are unaffected by the strike and who care less about the academic trajectory of the nation’s universities, make mockery of the monumental crisis afflicting our university education. Some are not perturbed by the fundamental issues that ASUU raises preceding each strike. Such commentators are indifferent when ASUU compares funding for universities with other sectors and the salaries earned by their contemporaries in other climes.
This column had thought that the government of President Muhammadu Buhari, which at its beginning was projected as a disciplined and firm administration, would tackle the ASUU crisis once and for all times. But like its predecessors, ASUU strikes have remained a regular decimal of its tenure. According to some accounts, in 23 years (1999-2022), ASUU has cumulatively been on strike for nearly four years. The present strike has clocked six months, and would be journeying into the seventh.
What a tragedy for a nation whose development index is amongst the most afflicted laggards of the world. According to some accounts, our country has taken either gold or silver as the poverty capital of the world since 2016, and those who should know are not making any connection between our development trajectory and the maltreatment of our education sector. According to the World Poverty Clock, over 70 million Nigerians are currently living in extreme poverty, which is about 33 percent of the country’s estimated population at 215,353,968.
If those in power at various levels of government care about the basic essence of governance, they would use education to help Nigerians escape extreme poverty. They would also understand the intricate connection between education and insecurity, which explains why the Boko Haram’s protagonists are doing everything they can to make education a haram. For the radical theology of such a group can only thrive where the people are ignorant. So, if those in power care, their strategy should be to use education to chase away poverty and insecurity.
The national discourse on university education should therefore be the quantum of resources the nation needs to pour into it, and where will such resources come from? Furthermore, what value should the nation gain from such investment, and what needs to be done to ensure a higher yield or return on investment for the country, amongst other interests? Since all are agreed the universities are poorly funded, the federal government, since 1999, should have negotiated implementable solutions to the challenge.
So, on the first point, the national discourse should be how much percentage of the national budget should be earmarked for education, and where would the balance of the resources needed come from? By every standard, the budgetary allocation to the universities by their owners are inadequate, whether for research, salaries and emoluments or infrastructure development. Unfortunately, while the federal government claims that it doesn’t have enough resources, there is clear evidence of waste, particularly in the direction of corrupt practices.
Even more unfortunately, the Buhari government, against expectations, has glaringly not curbed corruption in the application of public finances. So, while truly the nation may not have enough resources to meet all the ASUU demands, ASUU is belligerent because, like the rest of other Nigerians outside the government, it sees corruption and waste everywhere. It also sees insensitivity and dishonesty on the part of those given the mandate by the president to negotiate with them.
To assuage ASUU, the federal and state governments should empanel trusted Nigerians to broker the way forward for our universities. One of the issues for public discussion should be the introduction of enhanced fees for university education. The ongoing pretence that federal university education is free needs a robust review. While this column does not advocate payment of full- fledged fees for university education, free tuition fee university education is unrealistic with the current state of the national economy.
But to gain the support of Nigerians, university administrators would have to learn or be compelled to be more transparent in managing the available resources. The clamour by striking members of ASUU for the federal government to empanel Visitation Panels for universities is because of perceived corruption by the administrators. Again, if there is transparency, the clamour for autonomy would gain more traction, and even the use of the disputed UTAS payment system would be less acrimonious.
Unfortunately, with corruption permissive within the government circles and university administration, ASUU operates precariously between the devil and the deep sea. But the solution to the quagmire lies with the federal government, and until they rein in corruption in government and in the universities, its little effort would be dissipated. If the federal government deals with corrupt practices in the universities, and pushes more resources into the sector, a lot of the factors underpinning the perennial crisis will disappear.
Another issue that should worry both the government and members of ASUU is whether the curriculum of the universities is for 21st century learning. The present emphasis on teaching theories instead of application of theories is at the root of the minimal impact of university education in the development trajectory of the country. Going forward, Nigerian universities should be structured to solve developmental challenges of the country, instead of handing out certificates to graduates who queue up for the unavailable white-collar jobs.
Should university education produce more productive graduates, the GDP of the country would increase, and unemployment will reduce. Universities should, therefore, be incubators of ideas, programmes, projects and products, for the betterment of Nigeria. Research grants and funding from private sectors would also increase if the universities become incubation centres for entrepreneurship. The federal and state governments should also be more interested in competence in the selection of university administrators, rather than the trending ‘man know man syndrome.’
In the meantime, the six-month-old strike should be called off by ASUU, regardless of the terms on offer from the federal government, and ASUU’s gunpowder kept dry for the incoming administration. To continue the strike under an indifferent outgoing government, is to transmute the ASUU strike to ASUU stroke, that tragic health challenge that could become the lot of the unpaid ASUU members, and some parents whose wards have become perennial undergraduates.