Workers of Lagos State University (LASU) are on the warpath with management over its planned restructuring and ‘no vacancy, no promotion’ policy ADEGUNLE OLUGBAMILA reports.
Again, teachers at the Lagos State University (LASU) are oiling their guns in readiness a for a battle with management. They are up in arms against the institution’s “no vacancy, no promotion” policy and proposed restructuring of some programmes. They believe that the planned restructuring would lead to the sacking of some workers. They are against the “no vacancy, no promotion” policy because it would leave many stagnant on one level for long.
Before Prof John Obafunwa became LASU’s Vice-Chancellor (VC), his predecessor, Prof Lateef Hussain’s tenure was marred with showdown with the unions on campus. A strike once lasted for nearly six months.
The workers, who rejoiced when Obafunwa was appointed two years ago, are not happy with his policies, which they fear are aimed at witch-hunting .
But the management has described the workers’ agitation as “mere speculation”, adding that the proposed restructuring has nothing to do with streamlining the workforce but “academic programmes” alone.
The planned restructuring first hit the rumour mill last year before it blew open this year. when it became open, the different unions, sought clarifications on the policies from the management which said it was restructuring.
Chairman of the Non-Academic Staff Union (NASU), Comrade Yaqoub Jubril said the management’s ongoing austerity measure was gradually killing the university. He said though the union agreed with the administration at inception to prune cost but not to the extent that will affect activities in the university.
“At inception, we agreed with the present administration to cut cost because in NASU, we don’t condone corruption of our members. We only told the management to plug loopholes because we realised some of the imprests were not used for their actual purpose. But we also specifically warned that the running of offices must not be hampered as it is happening now.
“Go around our offices, nothing works. Even ordinary memos are not treated promptly. Above all, we are still convinced the management is trying to downsize,” he said.
Rather than downsize, Jubril said the workers have repeatedly suggested that the university can boost its Internally-Generated Revenue (IGR) through: LASU Foundation programme, Sandwich courses and LASU Consult, noting that management only inaugurated the board which has yet to take off.
“We don’t want a repeat of what happened during the previous administration. We all want a world-class university but this to me, is not the best way of going about it,” he said.
“We don’t know whether the issue of grammar is the problem here,” said Chairman of the the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU), Oseni Adewale Saheed. “If the management is saying restructuring, we are in total support because we are workers here and it is our joy that this institution develops. We have also visited the chairman of the (Governing) Council, Mr Bode Agusto, and he assured us that the restructuring will not affect workers’ jobs. But from past experiences, there is no way you will say you want to rationalise that workers’ jobs will not be affected. So we still don’t know what management is up to.”
The Nation gathered that when the plan was initially hatched, the Academic Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (ASUU) faulted the Council for gate-crashing into an activity beyond its purview as only the Senate has the sole responsibility overseeing academic affairs including programme restructuring. The Nation gathered that following the observation, the Council reversed its decision and wrote the Senate which called an emergency meeting in May during which the issue was debated. It concluded that if any restructuring must be done, it must first begin from the department, to the faculty and then back to the Senate.
“We have asked every faculty and department to re-present their programmes. Departments that wish to retain their present names are allowed, while those who wish to have their names changed are also given the freedom. But it’s like while we are doing something, the vice chancellor and council chairman are doing something else,” said a member of the Senate who pleaded anonymity.
“Let me tell you that in the ongoing admission, the National Universities Commission (NUC) has given us 5,000 carrying capacity but the vice chancellor and council chairman want to admit less than 2000 students. They are planning to admit less than 25 per cent to the institution. They want to allocate about 200 students to the Faculty of Arts Faculty of Education, 220 and so on. The idea is to create ‘LASU Business School’ where less that 25 per cent of our current carrying capacity will be admitted thereby sending many staff away,” the source added.
“We are not against restructuring. But whatever is done, the jobs of our members must not be touched,” said ASUU-LASU Chairman Dr Adekunle Idris. “Whenever the management thinks it needs to restructure, redevelop or re-engineer a unit, we are in total support at least to become more relevant in the academic profession.
“Management came up with a number of criteria with which they want to rationalise courses in LASU, and some of them are just untenable in a state university. We are looking at the economic viability of courses; relevance of courses to the society; ability to teach a course well and so on, but ASUU-LASU makes bold to say that there is no course within the confines of the way state or government universities are run that is economically viable; none within this school fees regime, except you want to turn it into a private university and that will be against the vision of the founding fathers of this great university.”
Besides, Idris said ASUU-LASU is seeking the domestication of the 2009 ASUU/Federal Government agreement which the Lagos State government signed with all the unions on December 31 2010.
The university’s Acting Director, Press, Media and Public Relations, Dr Sola Fosudo told The Nation in his office that the planned restructuring was informed by government’s directive to LASU to have all its programmes restructured to meet the 21st century demands.
“It’s all speculative,” Fosudo argued, “I don’t think we should be working on assumptions or presumptions here. What I know is that government wants all tertiary institutions in Lagos to have a second look at their programmes and curricula and see how they can repackage them so that what they are doing will have some relevance and linkage with the society. That is the government’s desire.”
Fosudo said the university had never been alien to the idea of restructuring.
“The idea of restructuring is not new, even before this new vice-chancellor came on board. I am a member of the Faculty of Arts Curriculum Committee and about three years ago, there was a directive that all departments should come up with a reviewed curriculum for their programmes. For instance, we in Theatre (arts) decided to call our programmes Theatre and Cultural Studies and very soon we will be graduating students in BA in Theatre and Cultural Studies. Also remember, there was a time the Department of History repackaged its programmes and called it History and International Studies. All these were before this talk on rationalisation resurfaced. All I know is that a document came from Alausa asking us to repackage our programmes to conform with the needs of the society. Is that a bad idea? So for members to be thinking the restructuring is being geared to lay off staff, I wouldn’t agree with that.”
On the ‘no vacancy, no promotion’ policy the workers said it is ploy to deny them their promotion. Because of the policy not all the workers across junior and senior cadres, that applied for promotion last year were elevated.
According to LASU’s conditions of service, a junior staff is entitled to promotion once in three years, provided such worker scales the three hurdles – Annual Performance and Evaluation Report (APER), written examination and oral interview each year making up to 65 per cent benchmark, except for those from Grade Level 11 which is subject to APER and an interview, every three years.
With the new policy, it now means that even if an employee has met the aforementioned conditions, he would not be allowed to move up except there is a vacancy at the at level.
When contacted on phone, Obafunwa declined comment on the issue, saying it is already with the Council.
“I do not wish to speak much on this as it is already with the Council. Anytime you come over to the LASU, kindly give me a call and I shall host you and give more explanations on this,” he said.
Agusto said he would rather certain issues remain “strictly confidential” until the appropriate time.
“In every organisation, there are confidential issues. There are things that should not be said openly until the time is ripe. I must confess that we have discovered a lot of nauseating things about ASUU and other workers which I would like to reveal at the appropriate time,” he said.
He said the non-teaching workers, many of who are talking about conditions of service, are being economical with the truth as many of those they are agitating for are still temporary workers of the university.
When asked to clear the air on the “no vacancy, no promotion policy,” Agusto adopted an analogy to give his response.
“Let’s assume you are running a business and you have a marketing director. Now, one of your employees has acquired the necessary qualification for the same post. Are you going to send your marketing director away or better still have two marketing directors?
“We have been talking to them (workers) but they don’t seem to agree with us. But if they feel they possess the qualification and yet they are not promoted, then they should look elsewhere for organisations that can employ them with their new qualifications. It is either they obey constituted authority or find an alternative,” he said.
Special Assistant to Governor Babatunde Fashola on Education Otunba Fatai Olukoga said the government supports the planned restructuring.
Olukoga told this reporter on phone that following the crisis that rocked the university under the previous administration, government would ensure LASU regains its pride of place by funding it well. He said workers especially the teachers must realise that if LASU must regain its glory, its activities must conform to standards as obtained in other world class universities.
He said: “It was after the last crisis that government decided to increase the institution’s monthly subventions. The outstanding 36-month arrears they are agitating for, it is even the government that promised to shoulder half of it. You can also see a lot of projects that are ongoing in the institution through government.
“Truth is that many of these lecturers travel abroad and see what obtains in other world class universities but yet we don’t want to replicate same things here. I believe what the management is doing is ensuring it curtails overcrowded classrooms, which had been our lot in the past and that is why today, many of our universities produce half-baked graduates. Our facilities must always be up to standard so we can always scale the accreditation hurdle. LASU must brace up and accept the present realities on ground, and its programmes also have to be restructured to meet the new global challenges.”
Olukoga denied knowledge of the ‘no vacancy, no promotion’ policy.
“As far as I’m concerned, such policy never got to our knowledge. Unfortunately, that is one area I also blame the workers for not informing us about that. We are government and they are in the university, sometimes we are not fully aware of any internal policy within the system whether negative or positive.”
