If Nigeria’s education system is in rubbles, then the higher
education subsector forms the largest pile of stones. Many graduates of
Nigerian universities are reportedly unemployable and the Polytechnics lack
infrastructure. Lecturers at these institutions alongside their colleagues in
the Colleges of Education have embarked on incessant strikes in recent times.
The solutions to many of these challenges, stakeholders say,
can be found in written agreements with previous administrations that were not
implemented. With a new administration in Aso Rock, stakeholders in higher
education who spoke to Saturday School Life, SSL, shared their hopeful
expectations for the implementation of old agreements, as well as the
introduction of new policies for the betterment of the sector.
For the Academic Staff Union of Universities, the demands
are almost identical to what they have been clamouring for since 2009; the
implementation of the 2009 agreement the Federal Government made with the
Union. ASUU’s National Treasurer, Dr. Demola Aremu said the Union is
particularly interested in Government’s fulfillment of its promise to pump
N1.3trn in six years to fund public universities.
This was well enunciated the previous administration’s 2013
Memorandum of Understanding with the Union, another agreement whose
implementation has not seen the light of day. Aremu said: “As a Union, we had
an agreement with the Federal Government in 2009 that still has not been
implemented.
Funding University education formed the crux of that
agreement, as well as the 2013 Memorandum of Understanding between both
parties. In the MoU, the Federal Government had promised to to pump N1.3 trn in
six years to fund public education. There is also the issue of earned
allowances which are being owed to University Lecturers. These are the things that the new
administration must focus on.
Education is currently in a very terrible state, and
government needs to pay attention to it. Many education policies are now
outdated. The government needs to go back to the drawing board and update these
outdated policies.” Reiterating Aremu’s point is Prof. Godwin Idoro, the Head,
Department of Building, University of Lagos. His words: “We really have to look at the major problems
in the sector, one of which is lack of infrastructural facilities.
There are no facilities in Nigerian schools. The workshops
are full of obsolete equipment, practicals cannot be held in many cases,
particularly for technical courses. The lecture rooms are not conducive.
Generally, the facilities are bad. So what one would expect from the new
government, is to first improve the facilities. One does not want establishment
of new universities or polytechnics or Colleges of Education, but to really
improve the existing ones, so that they can render qualitative education.
Vice President of the National Association of Nigerian
Students, NANS, Mr. Oluwatosin Ogunkuade, also called on the new administration
led by President Mohammadu Buhari to ensure free education for Nigerian
students at the secondary and tertiary levels. Ogunkuade, in a statement made
available to SSL said:
“Nigerian students demand for free and affordable education
from secondary to tertiary institution, reduction in exorbitant school fees;
lasting solutions to HND/Bsc dichotomy as well as subverting seasonal
industrial strikes in the subsector.”
The BSc/HND disparity was also a sore spot for the Senate President of
the National Association of Polytechnic Students, NAPS, Mr. Adeyemi Lukman who
called on the new administration to “revisit pending issues in the sector.
Some of these issues include full implementation of the 2009
agreement, bringing an end to the dichotomy between BSC/HND. There is also the
recent upgrading of some Colleges of Education to degree awarding status, but
the exclusion of polytechnics altogether in that development.”
Lukman added that there is no sense in graduating from
school if there are no jobs. ‘’There must be development of the textile, iron
and steel industries. Youths are the
major constituency and must not be neglected.” NANS on its part demanded for an
interactive session with the new President to air their views.
For the Education Rights Campaign, ERC, it is the new
President’s own words he should seek to implement. National Coordinator of the
ERC, Mr. Hassan Soweto told SSL: “In line with his campaign promises, the ERC
expects President Buhari to immediately, and within his first 100 days, cause a
supplementary bill to be sent to the National Assembly to increase the
allocation to education to at least 26% as recommended by UNESCO.
There should be no excuse or arm-wringing about this. The
President himself has said at different fora that his experiences while touring
the country for his campaign were that he realized a large number of youths are
without formal education and jobs.
Only by increasing funding to public education, cancelling
tuition fees and embarking on a massive public works to improve facilities at
all levels of education would offer millions of Nigerian youths the opportunity
of a second chance to get good education and learn useful skills without which
they cannot get good jobs even if jobs are available.”
The wind of change seems to be blowing all over Nigeria and
in many ways education stakeholders are all too ready to embrace it. But when
it comes to the old agreements the Jonathan Administration made with education
unions, ‘implementation’ would be more readily accepted than ‘change.’
Credit;
Vanguard
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