SIR: I am greatly worried and irked by the recent moves by the federal government, through the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission (NSIWC), the Federal Ministry of Education and the National Universities Commission (NUC) to remove employees of the university, who teach in the staff schools from receiving their emoluments from the national treasury, an age-long practice, ostensibly to save funds, in the face of the economic challenges currently besetting the nation.
Universities have their peculiar cultures and traditions. Let me quickly recall that university staff schools are part of the culture and tradition of universities. We should appreciate that most universities all over the world, are semi-autonomous communities and are exclusive to scholars (teachers and students). Because of this exclusive nature, university campuses are communities, which provide basic municipal infrastructure like water, power, waste disposal, sewage, housing, hospital/medical services and other utilities, including elementary and primary schools for children of staff members. In the course of delivering sound education, teachers are expected to be the purveyors of education by making it possible for children of university staff to access both qualitative and subsidised basic education. It is just fair then that they should derive such benefit from the system they are striving so hard to promote and serve!
The removal of the already poorly-paid university staff and academic employees of such schools from government payroll would mean that the affected workers would have no option than to pay multiples of the present fees in order to cater for the salaries of primary school teachers. It is worthy of mention that university staff primary schools have produced eminent scholars, professors, professionals in many fields as well as captains of industries, who have justified whatever resources spent on them by the government and in the process, have given back to the Nigerian nation.
Beyond their benefits to university staff, their children and wards, staff schools also serve as training laboratories and veritable platforms for undergraduate and postgraduate students from our faculties of education in the sense that students from other faculties and institutes in the university often patronise the staff schools in carrying out researches such as clinical research from the colleges of medicine, drama education from the faculties of arts, microbiological studies from the faculties of sciences and pharmacy, among others.
Perhaps, it was based on the above-mentioned merits that the federal government accepted in the agreement with university-based staff unions such as the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) and Non-Academic Staff Union (NASU), that the government would continue to bear the full capital and recurrent costs of the schools.
Regrettably, the new circular from the NSIWC is nothing but an attempt to breach and vitiate this agreement that has now turned out to be subject of tension in the Nigerian university system. This should be prevented. For a system that has suffered so much from strikes and industrial actions, all stakeholders should avoid further industrial unrest in the system. The position and contention of the unions, particularly SSANU, is that the 2009 agreement, which was freely entered into by the federal government through the instrumentality of collective bargaining, is sacrosanct and cannot be repudiated by any directive or circular, except both parties voluntarily review such agreement. Any attempt to desecrate the sanctity of their agreement would throw our almost stabilising university system into another round of avoidable crisis, a situation the nation cannot afford experience again.
The way out would be for government to invite the unions for another round of negotiations on this and other relevant matters, as the 2009 agreement is due for review every four years after assessing the workability or otherwise of the existing clauses. Rather than unilaterally vitiating the agreement, the government should do the needful and never rush into taking any decision by saying primary school staff “must” be removed from the government payrolls.
- Abdussobur Salaam,
Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (FUNAAB)
