Monday 15 July 2013

ERC Leaflet on ASUU Strike: SUPPORT THE STRIKE! DON'T BREAK IT


University Lecturers and Students United in the Struggle to Fight Neglect of Public Education!

Great Nigerian students, there is urgent need for us to act now to save Nigeria's education sector from a total collapse! 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 as well as other social services.

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.

This explains why the Nigerian government is extremely comfortable with 8.5% of budgetary allocation to education while about one-third of the nation's budget goes to salaries and allowance of political office holders. This is appalling especially 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%).

As a result of poor government funding, Nigeria's public education, from primary to tertiary levels is bedeviled with lack of adequate facilities for proper teaching, learning and research. Hostel facilities in the few schools where they still exist are dilapidated and insufficient. Access to education opportunities is greatly reduced. Over 10 million children are out-of-school in Nigeria.

Only just this year, 2013, about 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 3,000 in the world or among first twenty in Africa. Our academics have continued to seek greener pasture abroad which is leading to brain drain in our education sector. There are just about 34,504 lecturers left in the Universities. Out of this, only 75% or 28,128 are engaged on a full time basis. About 50, 000 more lecturers are needed to ensure adequate academic staff in universities. Yet nothing is being done about this even though there are tens of thousands of unemployed graduates who can fill these vacancies.

The University of Abuja has been turned to mere glorified secondary school. The medical and engineering faculties have been running without accreditations; facilities are not in place. Even other faculties 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.

Unfortunately, while the unions in the education sector are currently engaging the government in a struggle to save the education sector from total collapse, nothing is being heard from the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS)-platform that is supposed to always represent the interest and aspiration of Nigerian students who largely bear the brunt of government anti-poor policies of education underfunding and commercialization.

Nearly 10 students have been killed by the police this year alone during protests on campuses against hike in one fee or the other. 44 students of University of Uyo are still in detention for protesting against fee hikes. Only last year the ACN government of Lagos state increased the fees of the Lagos State University (LASU) from N25, 000 to between N280, 000 and N345, 750. This anti-poor policy has led to sharp drop in the number of students picking up admission because they cannot afford it. This has contributed to the planned rationalization of program and departments in LASU. This means that departments will be scrapped or merged which no doubt will results in the sack of staffs both academic and non-academic and further reduce access to university education. In UNILAG and OAU for instance, students' have been denied their right to independent unionism. These are just the few cases we can mention here.

In light of this, Education Rights Campaign (ERC) calls on students to boldly back the strike actions of education workers: ASUU, ASUP, SANNIP and NUT to save public education from total collapse.

ISSUES INVOLVED IN ASUU STRIKE
On Monday 1st July, 2013, the Academic Staff Union of University (ASUU) was forced to once again resume the industrial action which was suspended in February 2012. As usual, the issue again is the Federal Government's persistent refusal to fully implement the FGN/ASUU agreement signed since 2009.

Since 2009, the Union has embarked on series of actions including dialogues and warning strikes none of which has succeeded in convincing the government to meet its demands. Meanwhile ASUU's demands are not just about its members' welfare, it is also about the need to fund education properly and provide adequate teaching facilities.

An agreement is supposed to be an honorable 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!

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 ASUU and fighting together with them to save public education from collapse.

FOR A JOINT STRUGGLE

As experience of the last three and half years has shown, it would take a far more monumental struggle than the one needed to get the agreement signed to force the corrupt capitalist government to implement it. This is why as ASUU embarks on another strike, we have to reiterate that this strike should not be taken as just a sit-at-home action. Instead it has to be taken as a mass struggle to compel the government to commit Nigeria's resources to the funding of education, provision of adequate teaching facilities and to meet the needs of staffs in terms of pay and working conditions. This means ASUU has to begin mobilization of its members as well as students, youth and the public for mass actions like rallies, leafleting and demonstrations.

Ultimately, not one of the demands of ASUU can be satisfactorily implemented without defeat in government's anti-poor education policies. Needless to say, only a government that is truly committed to using Nigeria's resources to fund education can fully and satisfactorily guarantee the pay and working conditions of staff. This is why in the current strike and subsequent ones, the demands for improvement in education funding, democratic management of schools to include elected representatives of education workers and students, and provision of free education at all levels have to be fully placed on the front burner, not as secondary issues but as demands ASUU would be willing to continue to fight for even if the agreement presently in contention is implemented.

We in the Education Rights Campaign (ERC) believe that to win the struggle to save public education, all unions (ASUU, NASU, ASUP, NUT SSANIP, SSANU, NANS etc) need to come together. We call for a jointly coordinated campaign of all unions in the education sector to press home the demands for improvement in education funding and democratic management of schools.

DEMANDS
(1) Implement the 2009 FGN/ASUU agreement and all other agreements reached with unions (ASUP, SSANIP, NASU, SSANU and NUT)
(2) Improve funding of education to 26% in line with UNESCO recommendation
(3) Improvement in the pay and conditions of all teaching and non-teaching staff
(4) Provision of free and quality education at all levels
(5) Immediate reversal of all hiked fees in LASU and other institutions in the country.
(6) No to Victimizations! for respect of the right to independent unionism.
(7) No to Police attacks and killing of students! Release the UNIUYO 45!
(8) Democratic representation of staffs (academic and non-academic) and students in all decision making organs of schools.
(9) Nationalization of the commanding sectors of the economy under public democratic control and management.

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