ASUU on new education policy

STEEPED in disorder and constant criticism, the country’s education is in need of help. And the Academic Staff Union of Universities and allied unions in the tertiary institutions have resolved not to watch idly by, henceforth. They have, therefore, volunteered to act as change agents by formulating a new policy on education that will replace the existing one seen as deficient. This undertaking was the highpoint of a communiqué released at the end of a week-long National Education Summit organised by these bodies in Abuja, early this month.

The concerned unions were agonised that the present philosophy of education is destitute of values, customs, and aspirations of the Nigerian people. Besides ASUU, the Non-Academic Staff Union of Universities, National Association of Academic Technologists and Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities were the other unions behind the summit, whose theme was: “Towards a System of Education for Liberation of Nigeria.”

According to Olusegun Ajiboye, a professor, and Ibadan Zonal Coordinator of ASUU, the present educational system is bedevilled by chronic under-funding, corruption, poor leadership, infrastructure decay, shortage of personnel both academic and non-academic and promotion of mediocrity. The key element of education, the unions reason, is its transformative role in the life of both the individual – the recipient – and the society.

The degradation is pervasive; and only a holistic Marshall Plan will make sense. Many a child in Nigeria today completes basic education (primary) unable to read and write, contrary to when such school leavers were good enough to be engaged as teachers 55 years ago. The pupils of today who are neither literate, nor numerate, transit to secondary school, and then to the tertiary level.

In all modern societies, education is the beginning of a meaningful life. Indeed, it is the pillar on which other human or national endeavours rest. So critical is it that the 1999 Constitution in Section 18 stipulates, “Government shall direct its policy towards ensuring that there are equal and adequate educational opportunities at all levels.”

Unfortunately, the government is deaf to this imperative, and in the process yields its role to misguided individuals. In effect, privately-run academic institutions have proliferated at all levels. From 13 universities that existed in 1981, the country now boasts 128 universities comprising 40 federal, 38 state and 50 privately-owned. Most of these non-state schools are largely thrown up by profit motives rather than the pursuit of knowledge. In addition to its 40 universities, the Federal Government also has polytechnics and colleges of education of almost equal number, all of which it cannot adequately fund.

The crisis in education has reached such an abysmal level that all right thinking members of the society should join the call for a state of emergency to be declared in the sector. A few years ago, Wole Soyinka, literature Nobel laureate, was so riled that he suggested the closure of universities for about two years for a critical evaluation and repositioning, as Ghana once did. Perhaps, this is the hour for such a tough decision to be made.

For some years now, the Tertiary Education Trust Fund and Universal Basic Education Commission have complemented government’s funding of education. These are tokenisms that can no longer serve as lifelines. It beggars belief that the Federal Government could give N1 billion to each of its nine new universities to take off, but approved N7.5 billion as it did in 2013, for the building of Abuja city gates. Today, states that cannot present enough students for Senior School Certificate Examinations or their students score just two marks out of 200 in entrance examinations to Unity Schools, gleefully play host to two universities – state and federal.

Apparently at a crossroads now, Nigeria has to make a clear choice between qualitative and quantitative education. Objective conditions dictate that the two goals cannot simultaneously be achieved. Where universities exist without functional science laboratories, or the same number of academic personnel in older universities keeps circulating among the 128 universities, what then goes in our ivory towers is teaching without learning. For long, research, the engine driving knowledge in other parts of the world had ceased to be part of the intellectual milieu of our universities.

Apart from funding, leadership and training of teaching personnel are crucial if the present disabling scheme of things is to be thrown overboard. The wise counsel from Peter Okebukola, a professor, comes in handy. He said, “Universities need to be in the hands of managers who can run the institutions efficiently and prudentially manage resources.”

Increasingly, the exigencies of globalisation have forced countries, including Britain, Germany and others in Asia to interrogate their educational system, paying more attention to material objectives: how to produce competitors in the global economy; inventors, innovators and job providers, instead of job seekers.

But Derek Bok, a former Harvard University president (vice-chancellor), in a Project Syndicate article entitled: “High Education Misconceived,” inveighs against such parochialism. He said, “The shrunken conception of the role of higher learning is unprecedented. It ignores what were long regarded as the most essential aims of education: strengthening students’ moral character and preparing them to be active, informed citizens.”

Tragically, on all fronts, our universities are deficient. Every other thing in life can wait, but educating the child cannot. About 10.5 million Nigerian children are out of school. The country will certainly be building a castle in the air, if its leaders continue to be blind to what education does in the arduous task of nation-building.

Indeed, it was not for nothing that the United Nations launched the “Education First” initiative, by its Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, a few months ago.