FORMAL education is the bedrock of nation-building. A nation’s growth and development cannot outpace its intellectual consciousness. That Nigeria is tottering today may not be unconnected with the quality of the consciousness of its leaders and citizens. The quality of output from the country’s educational institutions keeps declining as the number of institutions increases. Poor funding by the government and incessant shut-downs by university staff unions, particularly the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), are at the root of it. Students in public universities spend long years in school and graduate with substandard capabilities.
Currently, ASUU is on a protest action which is getting into its sixth month. Fruitless negotiations have been going on while students are languishing at home. ASUU claims the Federal Government has consistently failed to honour an agreement entered into since 2009. What started as a warning strike on February 14, 2022, has snowballed into street protests, with the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) mobilising affiliate bodies in solidarity. Talks among the parties have become a ding-dong affair with both ASUU and the Federal Government trading blames, shifting stands and digging in. We are worried that this situation, which has become perennial and straddling several administrations, seems unending. Sadly, the effect on our education sector is devastating and might take several years to mend.
Students in publicly funded institutions are at the receiving end of it all. The current strike, coming at a time the COVID-19 pandemic had disrupted academic calendar for about a year, is another blow in a row for them. A four-year course might take more than six years to complete, as it stands. Many now regret choosing public universities. Their counterparts in private and foreign universities fare better. That is not all. There is the psychological aspect, as students who are supposed to be in school plotting their future are at home ruminating about what the future holds. Parents are spending more on rents for those staying off-campus with the hope that the action could be called off any time. The larger implication is that when schools resume after long gaps, academic activities are rushed to cover lost time, and quality suffers. With the loss of quality comes integrity challenge of such certificates because, most of the time, they are usually not fit for meaningful employment.
Concerned about the seemingly unending drag, the NLC on Tuesday July 26, 2022 mobilised for a two-day solidarity protest. The umbrella workers’ body frowned at the state of affairs fostered by the disagreement between government and lecturers over funding and welfare matters. Labour sided with ASUU and called on government to resolve the lingering crisis immediately.
In our last editorial on this matter entitled “ASUU Strike and the progressive damage to tertiary education” published May this year, we had counselled that while it is critical for government to look into genuine issues raised by ASUU, the union must also re-assess its strategy and more especially consider the implications of incessant shut down of schools on the immediate and larger beneficiaries of its services. We need to reiterate the need for all stakeholders in the education sector to join hands and seek lasting solutions to this perennial crisis. It is not in our collective interest that this situation drags on.
At the core of all these skirmishes is appropriate funding. Unfortunately, government continues to approve tertiary institutions on political considerations without well thought out plans on funding. Both the Federal and State Governments continue to do so even when the existing ones are not properly funded. It is obvious that government revenue is not elastic; so it must inform the need or otherwise for approving more universities; just as serious consideration should be given to how the existing ones can be funded outside government.
We should not be under any form of illusion: no government, state or federal, can solely fund education. We will be deceiving ourselves if we think that government alone can do so. No sector is adequately funded in the country today because of poor revenue inflow and mindless pilfering; so the education sector is not an exception. The question should rightly be: How do we fund public universities? Some argue that about 30% of the nation’s annual budget should be dedicated to the education sector. Same goes for the health sector. If 60% is dedicated to only two sectors, what happens to others like defence, infrastructure, services, etc? Some argue that if available funds are properly utilised it should be enough to service all sectors, but the fact remains that the education sector itself, including the university system, is not immune to corruption and misappropriation of funds.
It is time we come to terms with reality and device creative ways of resolving the subject of funding of publicly owned universities. Instead of grandstanding, governments at all levels, ASUU and other critical stakeholders need to discuss and explore more creative sources, otherwise the strikes and protests will continue ad infinitum. For more than three decades, both ASUU and NANS have been employing these tools to no avail. We cannot continue with the same strategy and expect different results. New approaches must be considered. Stakeholders should take introspective look and think out new ways of addressing the problem. The first thing is to get the funding right, allow charging of appropriate tuition fees and then work out how the ordinary people can have access to higher education. Although it is our belief that tertiary education should not be out of the reach of the common people, public universities need to be more innovative even as we make a case for increased government funding.
The fact is that university education is not cheap. In most developed countries, government is largely concerned with free access to basic education up to high school level. At the university level appropriate tuition is paid; while other means of accessing funds are explored: Student’s loan for those who cannot afford tuition fees, scholarship for brilliant and indigent students; bursary from state and local governments as subsidy; and employment opportunities within the system for students to earn some income. The last option also helps in adding work experience to academic knowledge.
We need university administrators who can bring innovation to revenue generation and management. The ASUU that can create software to get paid can also think of better funding options for the running of universities. Innovations, consultancies, endowments, investments, research and publications, fabrication and manufacturing, partnerships, Town and Gown relationships are all avenues that can be explored to attract more funding to universities. That is what universities in other climes do.
Governments at all levels must prioritise funding of education if the nation must develop at a reasonable and sustained pace. It should stop creating more challenges for the sector by reckless approvals of new universities when existing ones are still tottering. They should find more proactive ways of solving challenges in the sector and not wait for disruptive actions before rushing into protracted negotiations and making promises that they do not have the capacity to redeem.
Last week there were reports of President Muhammadu Buhari directing that immediate solutions be proffered to the crisis, but we believe that directives only would not solve the problem, going by past experiences. The reported directive which carried a timeline of two weeks lapses on August 2, 2022. As it stands, there are no indications that it will happen. Even as the nation is struggling with very dire revenue situation, government can declare a state of emergency in the sector and find contingency funds to deal with the situation; thereafter grant autonomy to the universities to generate funds and service their operations. The universities subsequently should be able to properly utilise their autonomy to deal with challenges and not only for rights and entitlements.
We urge Nigerians to join the campaign for the revitalisation of public universities because the future of our nation lies in well-funded public universities. Anything short of that is courting disaster, and that is the last thing we need.
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