COMMUNIQUE OF THE ERC OAU PUBLIC MEETING HELD ON 13TH AUGUST 2014

THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES

The Education Rights Campaign (ERC), Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) branch, held a public meeting on 13th August, 2014 at Urban-day Grammar School, Ile-Ife. The meeting discussed issues ranging from the current struggle against fee hike in OAU to the vicious closure of the university.

1) The current struggle against fee hike was appraised. The gathering maintains that the outrageous increment in fees in OAU cannot be justified by any stretch of imagination. Hence the protest of students against the increment is absolutely correct and necessary.

2) It is unfortunate and callous that the reaction of the OAU management against the legitimate protest of students was to close down the university. Closure of school, following a protest of students, is a clear attempt to criminalise the demands of students. Whereas the demand of students that poor parents and their innocent colleagues should not be held responsible for the irresponsibility of the Nigerian government is justified and morally imperative. Hence the meeting condemns outright the closure of the university and demands that the university management immediately reopen the campus.

3) The meeting observed that the closure of the university is a punishment for students because they protested an unjust policy. In fact it is an antic of the university to frustrate the struggle of students, which would divert the attention of students away from the vicious increment to immediate re-opening of the university. However, the gathering resolved that the closure of school is also an item on the growing list of maladministration of the Omole-led administration. And it must be equally resisted alongside the vicious policy of fee-hike.

4) The meeting recalled that the Congress of Great Ife Students’ Union had already prescribed the method to render impotent the antics of school closure, which is continuous action until victory. However, the meeting was critical of the non-implementation of these decisions by the leadership of the union as no single action has been undertaken since the closure of the university. Observably, the reason for this omission is the recent decision of the union leadership to employ the service of mediators to assist in talking the university into resolving the issues.

5) We are not opposed to any form of discussion with the university administration, but we greatly doubt that such engagements would make the university rescind on its vicious policy of fee hike. In fact, recent experience in LASU, UNILAG and institutions in Ogun State has showed that it is only a tenacious struggle of students that can win them victory from the politicians and their academic stooges who are terrorizing the Nigerian people. We believe this current struggle should not be reduced to how the university would be reopened alone, but it must be connected at all times with the need for the termination of the current policy of fee hike in OAU. The leadership of the union should not portray students’ struggle as merely for reopening of the university.

6) Arising from this, the meeting adopted programmes of continuous actions to agitate for the immediate opening of the university and reversal of the hiked fees. We are greatly motivated by the examples of our LASU colleagues, who showed that tenacious action is capable of embarrassing and exposing an anti-people government, and consequently, capable of winning victory for the masses. The meeting however resolved to start immediate mobilisation for a mass rally of Nigerian youths, students and workers, which would hold on 20th August, 2014. The convergence is Mayfair roundabout, Ile-Ife. Time: 9am. In conclusion, we are aware that the agenda of the university administration all this while is to make doing good unattractive and criminal. But we are certain that the demands of Great Ife students for the reversal of the fee regime is justified and worth fighting for. In this battle, the ERC is committed to support Great Ife students to prosecute the struggle to a logical conclusion.

Signed,

Wole Olubanji
Ag Coordinator
Issued: 15th August, 2014

ERC Leaflet on School Fees in Ogun

MASS FAILURE IN WASSCE MAY/JUNE 2014

                           

A Reflection of the Failure of Government Neo-Liberal and Anti-Poor Education Policies

13/08/2014

                                                                Press Statement

Just like previous examinations, this year's West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) recorded a dismal failure with just 31.28% of the 529, 425 candidates obtaining credits in five subjects including Mathematics and English. 

The failure has been described variously as "massive". In our view at the Education Rights Campaign (ERC), this result is nothing short of an absolute disaster. 

However, far from being the fault of the individual candidates, this disastrous result is a reflection of the failure of the anti-poor and capitalist neo-liberal policies of education underfunding and commercialization by government at all levels in the country.

Government at all levels has pursued a relentless policy of starving public education of funds such that public secondary and primary schools across the country have become devastated with little or no teaching infrastructures such that no useful learning are taking place. Where funds are released through budgetary allocations, the Universal Basic Education (UBE) schemes and others, they are routinely siphoned and mismanaged by politicians, officials of the Education Ministry and the UBE, contractors as well as the appointed heads of schools. The cumulative result of all this is the recurrent mass failure that we are experiencing in external examinations as well as the decline in the quality and standard of education generally.

We place the blame for this failure on the shoulders of the President Jonathan Federal Government as well as the State Governors whose anti-poor education policies are mortgaging the future of the Nation's youth. 

If President Jonathan government is any serious, this recurrent mass failure should serve as a wakeup call to inject more public funds, starting with the UNESCO recommendation of at least 26% of annual budget, into rehabilitating public schools and providing all the required facilities and infrastructures required in a 21st century education sector. All schools must be placed under democratic management such that teachers, parents, the pupils and communities have a say in how funds are utilized and on which projects unlike the present practice where appointed school heads and principals rule with impunity. 

This should be followed immediately by a declaration of free education at all levels and an immediate step to improve the wages and conditions of teachers and a program to begin the retraining of teachers in service and employment of more hands to bridge the yawning teacher: pupil ratio.

The Colleges of Education which are the training grounds for teachers have to be better funded and provisioned as the Colleges of Education Academic Staff Union (COEASU) have been demanding for years. A general improvement in the wages and conditions of teachers will immediately attract the best hands into the sector while the non-discriminatory improvement and upgrade in the facilities of all public primary and secondary schools whether located in rural areas or cities will ensure that teachers are not discouraged from accepting transfer to certain schools for reasons of their location.

None of the steps itemized above are impossible. Nigeria is more than capable, by virtue of the inestimable resources and wealth at her command, to reposition public education within the next few years. If these enormous resources at the command of the Nation are publicly and judiciously managed and ploughed into pro-working people social programs, much of the developmental problems of the Nation including the crises of public education can be surmounted in a few years.

Unfortunately capitalist politicians of the likes of President Jonathan, the 36 State governors and that of the Federal Capital Territory reside in a planet far apart from the people they rule. By virtue of their access to our collective wealth, these elements can afford to send their own children to expensive private schools within and outside the country such that they have little or no motivation to clean up the mess which their failed neo-liberal policies have created in the public education sector.

Further hampering the possibility of repositioning public education in Nigeria is the system of capitalism which all political parties in power at Federal and State levels subscribe to. By virtue of its prioritization of profit over people's needs, capitalism is the greatest obstacle to the possibility of harnessing and utilizing Nigeria's enormous wealth to transform public education and banish mass poverty. This is why the ERC canvasses for a socialist transformation of Nigeria such that the key sectors of the economy are publicly owned and democratically managed to ensure that the collective wealth of Nigeria is utilized for the repositioning of public education and other social amenities.

To achieve this requires the building of a powerful mass movement to fight against anti-poor education policies and a workers political party to take political power. These are the twin focus of the Education Rights Campaign (ERC) in the present period and it is why we are actively in support of the formation of the Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN) by the Democratic Socialist Movement (DSM).

Hassan Taiwo Soweto

National Coordinator

07033697259

Michael Ogundele

National Secretary

2014 ERC FREE HOLIDAY COACHING COMMENCES

A decade of uninterrupted exercise for poor children from working class background

By Moshood Oshunfurewa and Benjamin Osigwe

The Education Rights Campaign (ERC) Ajegunle branch has kick-started this year's annual free holiday coaching for students of secondary schools in Ajegunle and its environs. This year's free holiday coaching is the tenth edition so far. The coaching is taking place at the Anglican Primary School, 1 Ezie Lane off boundary road Ajegunle, Apapa, Lagos.

This selfless service of ERC and socialist students/youth members of the Democratic Socialist Movement (DSM) was initiated in Lagos State in 2004 to support children of the downtrodden working class in the slum of Ajegunle, Nigeria. 

Students registering for the coaching

This year free coaching started on the 4th of August, 2014 with turnout of 79 students on the opening day. This includes 21 students in SS1, 19 in SS2 and 39 in SS3 including some students that will be taking West Africa Examination (WAEC)-private. 17 volunteer teachers were also in attendance.

This coaching is part of the campaign of the ERC to demonstrate to Nigeria's capitalist government that free and quality education from primary level to tertiary level is possible. If Nigeria's stupendous natural and human resources are adequately used, democratically managed and controlled by the working people, free education will not only be possible at the primary level but up to the tertiary level as well.

Today, public education in Nigeria is chronically underfunded and mismanaged - a consequence of the brutal neo-liberal capitalist policies. This has made the education sector a ground of incessant industrial action with attendant spiral negative effects.

The ERC campaigns for the provision of free, functional and democratically-managed public education at all levels. We support all struggles of students and education workers for improvement in working conditions, better pay, against fee hike and commercialisation and for an end to infringement on democratic rights on campuses. In communities such as Ajegunle, we work actively among school students and teachers to campaign for the renovation of school buildings, stoppage of illegal charges and improvement in the teaching and learning facilities. The free holiday coaching while it provides opportunity for indigent students to attend coaching classes during the long-term holiday also helps to highlight the abandoning of public education especially in poor communities like Ajegunle and puts a search light on the activities of the authorities in charge of the schools.

A Class Session in Progress

On the first day of the coaching, three classes for each of the three senior classes (SS1, SS2 and SS3), was taken for the day. It commenced exactly 9am to 1:20 pm.

The coaching had been preceded by intensive mobilization with active involvement of comrades at the branch level of DSM. Some students that attended the coaching in previous years also took part in the mobilization exercise which covered both public and private schools in Ajeromi, Ifelodun, Apapa, Mile 2, Orile, Badia and Wilmer.

Subjects taken for this year are English Language, Mathematics, Civic Education, Government, Chemistry, Biology, Commerce, Financial Account, Geography, Further Mathematics, Christian Religion Study (CRS), Islamic Religion Study (IRS), French Language, Physics, Literature in English, Agricultural Science, and Yoruba Language.

Each of these subjects has three to four volunteer teachers. The success story about this year's exercise is that three of our previous students in the past years that are in the university are now currently participating as volunteer teachers.

During the break time, all students at the opening day were addressed on the purpose of organizing the free holiday coaching while the Education Rights Campaign’s anthem was sang by all.