It’s day 58 – so I found this great article written by Tope Adesipo Abio. enjoy!
Great Nigerian students, when the strike first began we thought that
this ASUU members have started again, for once we were all tired of the
incessant strike over wages and allowances the question that kept coming
to our mind is what do they want again? after-all,school fees has been
kept reasonably constant in federal university for some years now.
Our mind was definitely filled with different sentiments but after
taking a closer look at the agreement the federal government signed with
ASUU in 2009, the nitty gritty of it,which we believe that an agreement
is supposed to be an honourable contract between two parties Contrary
to this, the President Jonathan’s government has been unfair to the
letters and spirit of the 2009 FGN/ASUU agreement.
For instance, while the agreement stipulates annual increases in
budgetary allocation to education between 2009 and 2020 until it reaches
26%, the Federal government budgeted just a paltry 8.5% to education
this year.
All ASUU is demanding now is that the agreement must be fully
implemented. To all students, we cannot be indifferent to the content of
this agreement just because of our fears about the academic calendar!
and our not too friendly lecturers.
If this agreement is fully implemented, together with democratic
management of schools to include elected representatives of education
workers and students, it would mean better funding of education and a
great relief to overburdened students. It is therefore, in our best
interest as students to ensure this agreement is fully implemented by
supporting the implementation and fighting to save public education
from collapse.
Of course, if we look at the condition of facilities for teaching
and research in most state universities and federal universities,you can
not but sincerely agree that there is an urgent need for us to act now
to save Nigeria’s education sector from a total collapse! it is
reported that the Nigerian government has amassed huge fortune since the
democratic experiment began in 1999. It will interest us to know that
between 2000 and 2011, Nigeria government earned N48.48 trillion from
the sale of oil alone against N3.10 trillion earned between 1979 and
1999 (Guardian, 24/3/13).
With this tremendous upswing in the revenue at the disposal of the
Nigeria government, one would have expected it to translate to a
commensurate improvement in the quantity and quality of Nigeria’s public
education not only that, the government is quick to tell us the country
is broke but it didnt take sanusi lamido sanusi time to inject
600billion naira into failed banks of politicians and their cronies.
200million dollars was used to bail out nollywood..
Unfortunately, given the present state of public education it is very
clear that it’s more than ever enmeshed in a monumental crisis largely
characterized by poor funding. As a matter of fact the budgetary
allocation to education has fallen from 12.22% in 1985 to 8.5% in 2013.
Comparing this year allocation of 8.5% with UNESCO recommendation of 26%
budgetary allocation to education it is very clear that Nigeria
government is not really interested in funding education.
Here in Nigeria, more than half of the nation’s budget goes to
salaries and allowance of political office holders. This is an
embarassing paradox in a situation where many countries with smaller GDP
have their percentage budgetary allocations to education as follows:
Ghana (31%) ; Cote d’ivoire (20%); Kenya (23%); Morocco (17.7%);
Botswana (19.0%); Swaziland (24.6%); Lesotho (17.0%); Burkina Faso
(16.8%); Uganda (27.0%) and Tunisia (17.0%).
in the Nigerian universities, laboratories are overcrowded, stove are
still been use in the 21st century, water do not run in the lab and
often times lectures are suspended due to lack of electricity.
It has also been reported that in 2013, 1.7 million candidates sat
for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) and from the
available space in all the universities, polytechnics and colleges of
education in the country only less than 29 percent of the total
candidates will be admitted, thus leaving out over 1.2 million
candidates.
No Nigerian university is ranked among the best 5,000 in the world or
among first twenty in Africa. foreign professional use to be at the
university of Ibadan, today, they have deserted and our own lecturers
are also running for greener pastures . There are just about 34,504
lecturers left in the Universities out of about 50000 needed for optimum
efficiency.
A visit to the Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago Iwoye sums up the
Nigerian scenario the university has been turned to a mere glorified
secondary school. The facilities are dilapidated and lecture rooms looks
like a pig cage the same scenario is what we have in University of Uyo,
University of Calabar and other universities are also in crisis with
decaying infrastructures. At the Osun State University, about three sets
of medical students are in limbo between pre-clinical and clinical
stages because of the lack of a teaching hospital.
I strongly believe that the fight to save the education sector from
collapse and underfunding is a fight we must champion and pursue as
students who are the major stakeholders in the universities,
polytechnics and monothenics
We must also know that this fight cut across board and all political
parties in Nigeria are united in their anti poor policies. You will
recall that the ACN that calls itself the progressive Only last year
callously increased the fees of the Lagos State University (LASU) from
N25, 000 to between N280, 000 and N345, 750. A development that has led
to sharp drop in the number of students picking up admission because
they cannot afford it. Of the 5,000 quota given to LASU by the NUC only
about 1,200 students had applied as at today.
This has contributed to the planned rationalization of program and
departments in LASU. This means that departments will be scrapped or
merged.
Greatest Nigerian students, it is in light of this, that I call on
students to boldly and continue to make this sacrifices by backing the
genuine demands of ASUU so that our generation can get it right once and
for all.