By Omole Ibukun
Secretary, Education Rights
Campaign (ERC), Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) Ile-Ife.
Against the band-wagon of the background laid by the Student
leaders who have taken to the airwaves to applaud the 2016 budgetary allocation
for the education sector, the allocation still remains lower than that of 2012,
2013, 2014 and 2015. These previous budgets were not also proportionate to the
needs of the sector in those years, as none of them exceeded eleven percent,
against the 26 percent bench-mark recommendation of the United Nations
Education, Social and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) for developing countries.
For a recommendation that, reportedly, countries like Ivory Coast and Senegal
have met and gone beyond, it is most appalling that the most populated country,
the biggest economy and the largest exporter of crude-oil in Africa is still
yet to meet it.
From N306.3bn in 2011,
to N400.15bn in 2012, to N426.53bn in 2013, to N493bn in 2014, to 492bn in
2015, to N369bn in 2016, Nigeria’s most important sector remains underfunded.
While this budget is for the federal level alone, it is still less than adequate
for the essential development needed in this sector. At this crucial time in
our history, the education allocation remains the lowest since 2011, in terms
of amount. The years in between (with their ‘higher’ allocations) witnessed fee
hikes in almost all Federal tertiary institutions in Nigeria and the ensuing
resistance of students to these increments led to shutdown of some schools.
Year 2013 especially, was characterized with ASUU’s strike (which lasted for
about six months) to demand for better funding for universities and their
unpaid allowances which they earned and deserved. Even after those years, our
tertiary institutions still have empty laboratories, absence of residential and
lecture halls, poor living conditions, poor security and healthcare for
students. In fact, May to September, 2015 alone featured the death of at least
four undergraduates due to the lassitude of health workers many of whom are
overworked and absence of facilities.
With over ten million
out-of-school children, Nigeria needs to expend this fund on 40 federal
universities, 21 federal polytechnics, 22 federal colleges of education and 104
unity colleges, summing up to 187 institutions. One would then be prompted to
ask how soon the whole of the education sector will get its change.
At the same time, the federal government has a proposal in the
budget to employ and train 500, 000 graduates as teachers. Given the alarming
teacher: student ratio in the country, one cannot but welcome this initiative.
Actually for a long time now, the Education Rights Campaign (ERC), the Nigeria
Union of Teachers (NUT) and many other organizations have been calling for
radical actions to be taken to tackle the manpower deficit in the secondary and
primary levels of education. However given the way the initiative is couched
and the capitalist character of the Buhari government, even this policy raises
more questions than answers. For instance, given the shortage in physical
infrastructures like classrooms, laboratories, libraries and even staff rooms
in public primary and secondary schools across the country today, exactly what
plans does the government have to provide all of the essential facilities that
this 500, 000 teachers require to work? Secondly, is this going to be permanent
employment based on civil service rules and good condition of service or is it
going to be modeled after the slave labour scheme now popular in APC-states of
Osun and Oyo states where graduates are made to do menial tasks for monthly
pittance?
While the excuse of
corruption during the last administration in the sector have been given for the
past inefficient and unaccountable
expenses – in an attempt to cover the underfunding up, this administration is
yet to place on trial or convict any past corrupt University officials since
over seven months of its inception. This
prevails under a climate where the probing of Vice-chancellors is being
proposed by Students, for example in Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU).
It is more aggravating
that the present government and its representatives keep chorusing the IGR
drive with every opportunity they get, in an attempt to drown out the voice of
Nigerian students demanding free education. This is being perpetrated under a
climate of exorbitant fees as education is being priced out of the reach of the
children of workers and poor. For example, the University of Lagos (Nigeria’s
second best) charges its fresh students above N55,000 and OAU charges close to
N100,000, in a country where the N18,000 minimum wage is under the attack of
non-payment, payment of half salaries and threats of reduction. These school
fees, which are the basic IGR, have not led to any improvement in quality over
time. This is why a university at the heart of the country like UNIABUJA, still
continues to lag in quality of education. In fact, this university that
suffered de-accreditation of an engineering course some years ago has halted
admission into her law faculty over issues around accreditation of the law
programme.
Consequent of these
backward policies, Nigeria’s best university has a backward position in
Africa’s ranking, let alone world ranking. The best university in Africa, the
University of Capetown, is based in South-Africa; a country with four of its
universities within the best five in Africa and seven of its universities
within the best ten in Africa, while Egyptian universities occupy the remaining
three positions. As ground-breaking as South Africa’s statistics might sound,
their government had to reverse a fee-increment policy recently after students
took to the streets in the #FEEMUSTFALL campaign. Their demands also touched on
better living conditions and better quality of education, even though their
government has reportedly met the 26 percent UNESCO recommendation. This proves
that Nigeria’s target has to go beyond the South African example, if we are
going to make any difference. More than this however, the example of South
Africa also shows that on the basis of capitalism and the prevailing
undemocratic running of schools, even if Nigeria is able to allocate 26 percent
of its budget to education, it would not automatically lead to fundamental improvement
in quality or ensure affordable education. This is why the Education Rights
Campaign (ERC) calls for provision of free and functional education at all
levels and democratic running of schools and academic institutions by elected
representatives of student and staff unions. Together with this, ERC activists
are also involved in campaigns and struggles for the building of a socialist
alternative to capitalism.
With the aim of
revival of the economy, Nigeria needs to fund the education sector to provide
human capital to develop other sectors of the economy. How can Nigeria become one of the best 20
economies in the world by 2020, if her best university for five years running
is the 25th in Africa and the 2004th in the world?
(Webometrics statistics, Jan. 2016). Education has to be free, accessible and
quality to revive the economy. Trained hands are needed in the power sector, works
sector, the ICT sector, etc, if Nigeria will survive this economic mess.
However, on the basis of capitalism it will be impossible to achieve this goal.
The solution to the
mass illiteracy in Nigeria is not in the market-oriented approach with which
capitalist and neo-liberal policy-makers proffer solutions. It is not in the
privatization or commercialization of the sector. It is in the policies of free,
quality and functional public education at all levels. Meanwhile, these kinds
of policies can only thrive under a workers and poor people’s government where
the economy is publicly owned and democratically managed and where the rights
of students and staff to form independent democratic unions are respected and
the affairs of the institutions are managed by elected representatives of all
stake-holders of such institutions.
Nigerian students must
not leave the banner of these demands in the hand of students’ unions and National
Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) bureaucrats who do not only bureaucratize
unions that are supposed to be democratic, but also use their offices as
opportunities to lobby and propagandize for heartless politicians in exchange
for money. While striving to reclaim NANS, students and activists must
therefore organize independent platforms to defend their interest and also
democratize their unions out of the hands of political jobbers. This is in
order to use it as a platform around which the anti-commercialization campaign
that calls for adequate funding and democratic control of education sector can
be built. It is only by doing this, that the interference of political office
holders, management of institutions, and cultist groups will stop infringing on
the independence and the virility of Student Unionism.
No comments:
Post a Comment