THE four-month nationwide industrial action embarked upon by members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) had finally been laid to rest but an evaluation of the issues involved is necessary for a lasting solution to incessant strikes by the university teachers.
THIS is so because suspension of previous strikes by the union had only resulted in brief respite as the culture of regular and unbroken academic calendar has continued to elude our campuses over the years. This last strike, like most of the previous ones, had taken off a whopping four months with students shut out of classrooms, a period equivalent to a whole semester of academic activities.
IT instructive to note that the suspension of the last strike was conditional implying that if certain conditions are not met, the crisis would be far from being over.
ADDRESSING the press on the suspension, ASUU President, Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi declared: “following a careful review of the report of engagements with the Federal Government on proposals for addressing all outstanding issues in the 2013 MoU and 2017 MoA, NEC resolved that the current strike action by the union be suspended conditionally with effect from Friday February 8, 2019.
HOWEVER, should government fail to fulfill its part of the agreement as reflected in the 2019 Memorandum of Action, ASUU shall resume its suspended strike action as the union deems necessary.”
A critical evaluation of the immediate and remote causes of the crisis in the public universities clearly show that both the union and government, and indeed all stakeholders have their share in the blame and should go back to the drawing board in order to address the rot in our educational system. On the part of government, the issue of underfunding remains a knotty issue over the years. Most of the strikes declared by unions were tied to this.
THE HOPE condemns government’s neglect of the public universities in terms of its financial obligations. More worrisome is the attitude of some state governments who proliferate universities without basic facilities and reasonable funding thus turning the establishment of universities to constituency project.
NO sooner most state governors establish universities than they abandon them to their fates or at best to federal government sponsorship through Tertiary Education Tax Fund (TETFUND), and other federal government’s interventions. We equally condemn in its entirety, the federal government’s refusal to honour agreements it willingly entered into with striking unions. It has more or less become a perpetual attitude to use agreements as a bait to lure the unions to suspend strikes with the mind of abandoning such agreements once the strike is called off.
FOR any government to enter into an agreement with a union when it knows it cannot fulfill the terms is not only illegal but also immoral. This attitude of government must stop if a lasting solution is to be achieved in the crisis rocking public universities.
ON the part of ASUU, The Hope calls on the union to look inwards. First, the union should examine itself and harmonise its pursuits by carrying its members along.
THE dichotomy between federal and state owned varsities once it comes to dividends of its struggle is capable of polarizing its ranks. It must also purge itself of the moral burdens some of its members carry across campuses. Lecturers should show commitment to work and see students as their children and not to take advantage of these students under their care.
THE union should also see the Vice Chancellors who it accused of corruption in administering the universities as part of them as it were.
NEVERTHELESS, this accusation should not be swept under the carpet as the union, being an insider, is in a more vantage position to raise such alarm. Government should therefore deploy its relevant agencies to investigate this.ASUU should also do more to educate the public on its legitimate demands for improved university education.
IT must also carry along critical stakeholders like students and parents. The disagreement of NANS with the union over the strike is a sign of a huge gap that exists between the union and the students’ body.
BESIDES, the union should consider any possible alternative to incessant strikes. It may wish to consider an extreme decision taken by varsities teachers in Ghana who closed down the entire universities campuses for a whole year until government addressed all critical issues once and for all.
A country like Ghana now boasts of attractive public universities as their private counterparts are merely patronized by foreigners mainly from Nigeria whose public varsities are in crisis. It is even laughable that more West African countries including Benin Republic now establish private universities purely as a business enterprise targeting Nigerians for patronage.
THIS is because most of these private varsities established across West Africa are substandard compared to their public counterparts in those countries but Nigerians, in search of stable academic calendar, have continued to patronize them.
TO restore the past glory of our public universities in global reckoning, all stakeholders-government, unions, students, parents, philanthropists must put the corporate interest above sectional or selfish interests.
