Then the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) suspended its almost six months strike, the question on most people’s lips was whether this would be the last ASUU strike. This is a very potent question, given the fact that the last strike – like others before it – did incalculable damage to the country’s tertiary education sector. It was, according to my estimation, one of the most discussed ASUU strikes of all time, no thanks to the social media. Would this be the last strike? For an answer we would need to study the “body language” and tone of some of the principal actors of the 2013 edition.
The starting point should be Dr. Nasir Fagge, ASUU President who said – while the strike was being suspended – that “ NEC (National Executive Council) has resolved to suspend the strike embarked upon on July 1, 2013, with effect from Tuesday, December 17, 2013, and directs its staff to resume work forthwith.” Ordinarily, this was supposed to be a straight forward statement until we hear the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Senator Anyim Pius Anyim.
Senator Anyim had said: “Notwithstanding the fact that some of the sessions were typically stormy, I am gladdened by the fact that the strike has been called off and we are here to formalise the process that will work to uphold the renewed confidence between ASUU and the government.” I juxtaposed these two statements – one by an intellectual and the other by a politician and bureaucrat – and I came out with two varying views while reading in-between the lines. Why did I say this?
My reason is straight forward. If you go back to the first statement you’d notice that the ASUU president used the word “suspend.” On the other hand however, Senator Anyim used the phrase “called off”. As intellectuals, ASUU framed its statement with utmost care. By using the word “suspend”, it implies possible resumption of the suspended action in the future should the government renege on its part of the deal. This was what informed the union’s insistence that a letter must be written to it on the N200 billion deposited at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) by the government.
By its own framing though, the government believed the action has ended as a fait accompli especially as it believed it has ‘political’ undertones which those in authority find untenable.
Fagge did not end with the statement earlier quoted. He added that “ASUU would have preferred to undertake the re-negotiation of the 2009 agreement in the second quarter of 2014, but we were persuaded to shift the date to the third quarter, and we agreed as a gesture of goodwill.”
Do we now need a soothsayer to tell us that the third quarter of 2014 might be problematic given the history of conflict resolution involving ASUU and government? Recollect that the lecturers stuck to their guns as several resolution meetings were deadlocked. As the Americans would say, the buck stops at the Presidents table, it eventually took a marathon 13-hour meeting between the union and President Goodluck Jonathan on November 4 to resolve the complicated disagreement, with the government committing itself to injecting N1.3trillion into public universities between this year and 2018. The compromise – if I may reemphasise here – involved N220 billion yearly government release beginning from 2014, and an agreement to domicile N200 billion in a special account at the Central Bank of Nigeria for the remaining part of this year.
Perhaps the union knows that these are huge figures and care must be taken that it is properly and adequately expended considering the fact that the strike was predicated on increased funding of the public universities, a declaration of state of emergency in tertiary education, improved wages as well as payment of earned allowances to academic staff. So, now that the first hurdle has been painfully surmounted, what next?
Some days prior to the suspension of the action, the government instituted a 12-man monitoring committee on the implementation of the recommendation of the Committee on Needs Assessment of Nigerian Universities. They are to oversee the execution of projects on the campuses of the 59 federal and state universities.
The Supervising Minister of Education, Chief Nyesom Wike heads the committee. Other members include the Minister of Labour, Senator Atiku Abubakar Bagudu, Hon Jerry Alagbaoso, Permanent Secretary Federal Ministry of Education, Executive Secretary NUC, Chairman Board of TeTFund, Presidents of ASUU, NASU, SSANU and NAATS while Mr. Ifiok Ukim, Head of Legal Services at TeTFund will serve as Secretary.
The Committee, after inauguration, constituted six monitoring teams for the six geo-political zones with responsibility to monitor project implementation in all the universities within the zones.
On paper and in the news this right is on point! But in reality, most of us will say we’ve heard these before, we are hearing it now and will continue to hear it until something actually changes. For me, I believe the time to set the agenda is now. Education is too critical to be left in the hands of people who do not have the faintest inkling on what qualitative education is all about. I’m also of the opinion that as we set the agenda, we should equally have it at the back of our minds that qualitative education does not come cheap. In essence, we should start exploring avenues where we can have qualitative and affordable education that would not compromise standards.
It would be naïve for anyone to think the crisis in the sector is over with these funds, far from it. That is why we have to start by holding this committee accountable from day one and ensure that the projects earmarked are properly executed to global standard. Anything short of this would be a national disaster and we would end up where we started.
This was what Fagge had in mind when he put the suspended strike in perspective. Hear him again: “It is our hope that the government will honour these resolutions as signed.” Without probing further, you’ll know that this is the crux of the matter. Why did he make this comment? Rewind to four years ago when the union had a similar face-off with the Federal Government which lasted four months, and the terms of resolution was what formed the basis of the just suspended action. What they’re saying in earnest is that ‘we can resume our action anytime we feel you’re not keeping your part of the deal.’
Why am I insisting on setting the agenda? I am because agenda setting describes a very powerful influence of the media – the ability to tell us what issues are important. As far back as 1922, the newspaper columnist Walter Lippmann was concerned that the media had the power to present images to the public.
Agenda setting theory, therefore, is the creation of public awareness and concern of salient issues by the news media. Two basic assumptions underlie most research on agenda setting. The first is that the press and the media do not reflect reality; they filter and shape it. Secondly, media concentration on a few issues and subjects leads the public to perceive those issues as more important than other issues. One of the most critical aspects in the concept of an agenda setting role of mass communication is the time frame for this phenomenon. In addition, different media have different agenda setting potential. Agenda setting theory seems quite appropriate to help us understand the pervasive role of the media.
The rot in the education sector is deep and will take years to address – let’s not fool ourselves about that – but we have to start somewhere. That starting point is the ability of the mass media to effect cognitive change among individuals and in the process, structure their thinking. Here may lay the most important effect of mass communication, its ability to mentally order and organise our world for us. In essence, the mass media is often successful in telling us what to think about, and this time, I want us to start thinking of the critical role tertiary education plays in the 21st century world.
