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.
