ASUU led NASU and students to ruin our educational system through their incessant and prolonged strikes in the last two decades .They resisted autonomy for universities to employ their staff and charge fees. Today children of elites and middle class are locked out of federal universities because nobody can predict how long a program would last .A 4 year course can go on for as long as 7 years all because of one strike or the other. ASUU, NASU and students resisted increase in school fees. Fees of all categories were paid in Nigerian universities before Ali Must Go strike of 1977 and that was when we had 6 universities with population less than 50,000 students. Today we have over 1 million people seating for JAMB and no reasonable fees is being paid to run the universities. As oil money diminishes the capacity of government to fund the universities will nose dive. The concern of all should be how we can fund those universities and deliver sound education. ASUU should support charging of school fees and work out financing arrangement for indigent students so that our universities can be autonomous. Such financing arrangement could be state bursary, scholarship or student loan. It should be structured in such a way that once a student gets admission there must be a funding plan if the parents cannot pay. No student should be denied a place in our university on the basis of lack of finance .With fees assured we can pay our lecturers based on their talent and location. There should be no basis for a lecturer in ABU to earn the same amount with a lecturer in Unilag or Bayero University. Until we get to that level we won’t get our educational system at tertiary level right.
The unintended consequences of ASUU strike are numerous. Most middle income parent would send their children to a university where academic calendar is certain. Parents are forced to spend so much of their income on educating their children in private and foreign universities with debilitating impact on family income and well being. Many parents slip into avoidable poverty as they strive to educate their children. Those in government are given perverse incentives to be corrupt putting their hands in the till to educate their children abroad. Today its anathema for officers of certain cadres in the private sector, government ministries, agencies and departments to send their children to local universities. ASUU, through their strikes, provide the justification. The winners in this our national malaise are our less endowed neighbouring countries like Benin, Ghana , Sudan, Gambia where children of middle class flock in search of seamless education . ASUU must do a rethink in their approach and strategies as their members too are victims of our decadent educational system that rely only on diminishing government funding.
Bolade Agbola
Agbola is an Analyst and Chairman Liberty Schools Okota Lagos
