Bitter old wine in old wine bottle
By
The expected, once again, has happened. The disagreement between the Federal Government, represented by the education minister, and the Academic Staff Union of Nigerian Universities, reached a predictable climax penultimate Monday when ASUU declared an indefinite strike. It is pertinent to note that the contentious issues that precipitated the present impasse are not new, although the focus for now has been on government’s refusal to sign (and by implication, refusal to acknowledge and implement) an agreement reached with ASUU in December last year. The fundamental issue, the way I see it is about how the university is to be run in terms of resource accumulation and allocation.
Nigerians must frankly admit that the standard of teaching and learning in our universities has degenerated to the extent that we have a state of emergency in our hands. This fact seems to have been lost on governments, both past and present, judging by the irrational manner issues about tertiary education has been handled by them. I do not wish to belabour the issue of poor funding here, but it must be recognised that the chronic under funding of educational institutions at all levels is critical to the decay evident everywhere in the educational sector. Right from the primary school level up to the universities the different tiers of government have tended to see proper funding of education as luxuries which the country can ill afford at this period of economic decline. But his attitude to education cannot be rationally justified because the development of human resources, which is the key function of education, is the most important factor in the economic advancement of any nation.
In Nigeria, those at the helm of affairs pay lip service to education because they lack a philosophical understanding of the important role high quality education plays in the positive transformation of individuals and societies. Again, they can afford to neglect the educational sector because "the big men" can afford to send their children abroad to get properly educated. Consequently, "the rich and the powerful" do not mind if our universities remain shut for long periods since there is always the option of sending their children overseas for undergraduate and post-graduate courses. In as much as the present unitarist and over centralised approach to running our universities is inimical to the healthy evolution of qualitative education at the tertiary level, the government at the centre must be blamed seriously for the sorry state of affairs in the universities. It is obvious that if the government had invested what it ought to invest in our universities, the problems of brain drain, dilapidated and inadequate infrastructure, recurrent students’ violent demonstrations and strikes by different unions in the universities would be greatly reduced. I call on Nigerians, especially those who have the ears of President Obasanjo to tell him "loud and clear" that he must make education his topmost priority because the reconstruction of this battered country lies squarely on the shoulders of knowledgeable and enlightened Nigerians.
Turning our attention to the present misunderstanding between ASUU and the government, certain questions come quickly to mind. One, both members of ASUU national executive committee and government officials are well educated. Now, why is it that both parties must allow things to reach a crisis point before they begin to see reason? Why must government wait for ASUU to go on strike before making serious efforts to address the problem. Also, why should so called "well-meaning Nigerians" wait for ASUU to "down tools" before they begin pressurising government to accede to the demands of the lecturers?
Overseas, wealthy individuals endow chairs, create foundations, spend millions in purchasing books and equipment for universities, and even at death will some money and other resources to the institutions they attended or admired. But in Nigeria, our multi-millionaires and billionaires spend their money stupidly in buying expensive items they do not really need, or stash it away in foreign banks to be used in lubricating the economies of those countries. It is high time our very rich brothers and sisters invested seriously in the universities. That way, they will be making invaluable contributions to the education of their children and grand children. Nigerians should learn to put their money where their mouths are. If they want quality education for their children, then our people must know that it costs a lot of money to achieve that. Thus, they must personally contribute to the funding of education and also insist that the government must allocate enough money to our universities.
Without prejudice to my being an ASUU member, the insistence by ASUU that the government should invest properly in universities is quite in order. I entirely agree that the government has not done enough to rescue our universities from the doldrums they are in presently. Again, it is reprehensible that government would waste peoples’ time negotiating an agreement which it never intended to take serious. And if there are items in the agreement which the present minister of education finds unacceptable, why did he not contact ASUU on time so that both parties can take a second look at them? As I asked earlier, why allow matters to degenerate before making efforts to end avoidable stoppage of work by university teachers?
In as much as I share wholeheartedly ASUU’s concern for the improvement of university education, I must caution that the rampant use of indefinite strike, even when government provokes it, has serious unpalatable repercussions on the university system. First, it destabilises the system, and makes nonsense of any planning. There is no doubt that stability is one of the necessary conditions for the healthy growth of a university. And even in the face of daunting inadequacies, a stable university system, by sheer dynamics of its inner workings, can achieve some degree of improvement particularly if creative, honest, imaginative and hardworking people are allowed to manage key aspects of the system itself. ASUU must recognise that inspite of inadequate funding and poor remuneration, some world class innovators in arts and sciences have made their marks by sheer determination and produced stunning discoveries.
Karl Marx and Michael Faraday are typical examples. Making allowances for socio-economic and cultural differences, most genuinely creative scientists and artists do not worry so much about money. What they require most is the freedom to imagine the seemingly unimaginable, think the seemingly unthinkable and recreate creation. In other words, there is a lot creative academics can achieve in our universities if they are really determined, in spite of inadequate funding. The frequent use of the strike option, notwithstanding ASUU’s rationalisations of it, portrays the union as one run by people who have not outgrown the "aluta mentality" of their days as students, people who lack the creative imagination to invent new and less disruptive strategies of getting what they deserve from reluctant governments, people who really do not care about the plight of students, etc.
The present disruption of academic work in the universities, together with the wastage of scarce resources on propaganda especially by the government calls into question the relevance of the type of education we have now to the management of crisis. I thought that as with educated individuals both government officials and members of ASUU’s NEC can reach a compromise on the contentious issues that still them, that both parties must "give and take", so that they can reach a solution mutually acceptable to both. Instead what I see is the hardening of positions, with the minister of education and executive secretary of NUC trying to ridicule their colleagues in ASUU. Why should educated adults behave in this way, for goodness’ sake?
To be candid, in as much as I personally do not support the current strike because it derails the universities and again because there is no scientific proof that strikes have led to a sustainable improvement in the university system generally, I must, without reasonable limits, tag along with my union, for that is where I belong. At all events, the minister of education must come down from his high horse, call ASUU people together and discuss honestly and sincerely with them. There is no point invoking the hardline position of "no work, no pay", or threatening to sack university teachers. Such futile irascible approach can only worsen the already terrible situation and prolong the strike. On its part, ASUU should be willing to dialogue with the government, make significant concessions and call off the strike as soon as government initiates discussions with the union. Excessive rigidity must be avoided.
Finally, I believe that the problems confronting our universities transcends the issues ASUU is agitating for. Fundamental to these is lack of proper understanding, with the attitudes appropriate thereto, of the meaning and mission of the university in modern societies.
If Nigerians clearly understood what the concept of a university really means, and its centrality to the development of man, they would do all they could to make our universities second to none in the world. But alas!, we are destroying our only hope for a better future!
Dr. Anele teaches Philosophy at the University of Lagos, Akoka.