ASUU STRIKE AND ITS IMPLICATIONS

By Gabriel A. Edem

The current lingering strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), has been a source of great concernand worry, considering its devastating impact on Nigeria’s university system.

A quick peep into the cause of the latest strike will leave no one in doubt that it could have been averted, if only the Federal Government was sensitive to the plight of our youths and not jeopardize their future as the leaders of tomorrow.

ASUU’s current grouse with the Federal Government is not new and include failure to implement the Memorandum of Action it signed with the labour union in December 2020, refusal to fulfill some of the other agreements signed as far back as 2009, which speaks to the revitalization of public universities through consistent funding.
Others are payment of earned academic allowances, acceptance and implementation of the University

Transparency Accounting Solution (UTAS) developed by the union in place of the Integrated Payment and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) currently in use, settlement of promotion arrears and the re-negotiation of the 2009 ASUU-FGN agreement.

We recall the eulogies Mallam Adamu Adamu, Honorable Minister of Education, heaped on ASUU in the past, when he was in the media, before his ministerial position and one wonders what may have changed between then and now that is making it so difficult for him to positively synergize with ASUU and implement his alluring views on university education to permanently end the incessant and disruptive strikes now that he superintends over the Education Ministry. In his article titled, “Why ASUU Is Always On Strike,” on November 15, 2013 before becoming a Minister, he called for proper funding of public universities and contended that the struggle by ASUU was to compel the government to make substantial investment in education and “save the university system so that it becomes what it is supposed to be – a system for producing a culturally-literate society and for generating and harnessing ideas and knowledge, initiating and driving social and economic innovation, and ensuring national competitiveness on the global scene.”

Since becoming the Minister with direct responsibility for higher education, and believing that he appreciates the value of education and knows what obtains in civilized climes in the area of education, Mallam Adamu’s inability to appreciably impact positively on ASUU’S noble cause of repositioning the university system is worrisome.

Perhaps, our public university system would have completely collapsed without ASUU’s militant activism to improve university education in Nigeria, considering government’s reluctance towards the adequate funding of public universities and the floating of more universities.

Since education is the bedrock of national development and coupled with the poor funding of tertiary institutions in the country, incessant strikes by university-based labour unions, such as ASUU, add their own damages to the university system through loss of cumulative period of years by students due to disruptions of academic calendars.
This impact adversely on the quality of education and by extension human capital with the right competences required for overall national development.

The greatness of a country is measured in terms of the quality of its human capital that is willing to deploy their competences for the development of their country.

Some developing countries such as China and India are known to invest massively in the expansion of their education sectors and place high premium in the tertiary levels of education,especially science and technology, and the resultant positive outcomes has been very significant. Unfortunately, our debilitated university system paralyzed by strikes churns out human capital that lacks the basic skills necessary to survive dynamic environments.

Besides watering down the quality of education offered to students, incessant strikes cause parents to lose confidence in the university system and encourage education tourism as those with means send their children to universities abroad, where high standards are maintained as well as privately-owned universities at home, where there are hardly disruptions of academic calendars.

According to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) the strikes by ASUU also take away the students’ fundamental rights to education, thus, making them victims of industrial disharmony between the Federal Government and ASUU.
It is, therefore imperative for governments at all levels, to improve our intellectual capital and put a halt to strikes in the education sector by making education tops on the lists of their priorities and adhering to duly signed agreements.

The Federal Government must collaborate with ASUU (and indeed other labour unions in tertiary institutions) to build a university system that creates locally, the quality of opportunities that our lecturers seek abroad.This way, our university system will attract and retain the best brains, thus, reversing the brain drain that had seen many of our lecturers leave for competing education markets offshore.

Adequate funding for education in Nigeria should not be a challenge for governments, at all levels, if they reduce the cost of governance to manageable levels and adopt practicable measures to curb profligacy, ensure prudent spending of public funds and substantially reduce or eliminate grand corruption, brazen fraud and impunity in public service.

The pleasant results of adequate funding of tertiary education will manifest in a remarkable rise in academic standards.