Pathways to sustainable education in Nigeria (6)

THE fact that education costs money can hardly be denied. Quality education requires quality infrastructure, excellent and well remunerated teachers, adequate curriculum development and planning amongst others.  Most Nigerians demand the best quality education, even though they are also aware that quality education is most expensive. The pertinent question which most people never address is how much individual should pay for education and the extent to which government must subsidize if not totally funded. Questions such as “How much does it cost to educate a child? ”Why does government not spend more to fund education?”, “Why must students pay tuition when government generates so much revenue” are some of the numerous questions which daily attract debate across all strata of Nigerian society. In address SECURITY of tenure should not under any guise be used as an excuse by any Vice Chancellor to support directly or indirectly any strike action in the Universities. Sustainable education cannot be achieved even with the most advanced of facilities when students are made to spend months on end idling at home because of strike actions. Academic programs which ordinarily should last no more than four years now take about five or even six years to complete. Incessant strike actions in Nigerian Universities have forced many parents to send their children and wards out of the country for tertiary education. Universities in Ghana and even Republic of Benin now compete with Nigeria Universities for enrolment of Nigerian students.

There is also the point that in embarking on strike actions, little regard is often had for the law which limits strike actions to matters connected with employment and no more. Whilst I do not intend to dwell extensively on legal matters, I consider it pertinent to refer to Sections 1 and 48 of the Trade Dispute Act Cap T8 which defines “dispute”, “strike” and “trade dispute” as follows: Strike means the cessation of work by a body of persons employed acting in combination, or a concerted refusal or a refusal under a common understanding of any number of persons employed to continue to work for an employer in consequence of a dispute, done as a means of compelling their employer or any person or body of persons employed, or to aid other workers in compelling their employer or any persons of body of persons employed, to accept or not to accept terms of employment and physical conditions of work;…

Trade dispute means any dispute between employers and workers or between workers and workers, which is connected with the employment or non-employment, or the terms of employment and physical conditions of work of any person;” In spite of the clear provisions of the law forbidding strike in matters not connected with employment, the staff of our educational institutions both academic and non-academic, and even students embark on strikes. Sometimes, it is an instrument of blackmail to compel those in authority to meet one demand or the other. But most of the time, the motives are sometimes ridiculous, illegal and totally unconnected with the conditions of service of the staff or terms of employment.

This is in total disregard to the decisions of the Courts of the law in so many cases. For example, in the case of Oshiomole v. FGN &Anor. (2005) 1 NWLR (Pt. 907) 414, the Court of Appeal upheld my submission that a strike to protest government policy on fuel tax and style of government do not fall within the ambit of trade dispute. In B.P.E v. N.U.E.E. (2003) 13 NWLR (Pt. 837) 382 @ 402-403, the Court was categorical that for a trade dispute to be said to have arisen, there must be a clear case of an employer/ employee relationship between the parties and the point of agreement between them must point unequivocally to a trade dispute. Therefore, any strike action over matters not related with the terms and conditions of the employee or employee’s appointments would be illegal and unlawful.

It is clear from the above that issues bothering on general policies of government such as whether or not to remove petroleum subsidies are not matters connected with the employment terms of staff in the Universities and therefore should not constitute grounds for embarking on strikes. ASUU is not competent to embark on strike on matters such as Registration of Nigeria Universities Management Company, transformation of Federal Government landed property to universities, setting up of Research Department and Development Unit by companies operating in Nigeria, Budget Monitoring Committee and Revitalization of Nigerian tertiary institutions are not connected with employer/employees relationship.

Vice Chancellors should, as stated earlier, not regard themselves as mere civil servants. They must act like the courageous captain of a ship who is expected to do everything to save his ship and failing that must be ready to sink with the ship. Vice Chancellors must offer effective leadership to those they lead and hearken to the saying that, to lead men, one must sometimes turn his back on them. They should make use of knowledgeable lawyers to advise them on legal issues including matters on which their employees can or cannot embark on strike.

University teachers in Nigeria

One other area where the Vice Chancellor can positively affect sustainable education is by properly harnessing the resources at his disposal towards the achievement of the University’s major objective which is teaching.To do this, he must ensure that only qualified and dedicated lecturers are employed to teach in the institution. Owing to the importance of education, only qualified teachers should be employed. It is also expected that those who are so employed will go about the discharge of their duties with utmost zeal and dedication. Most unfortunately, the Nigerian experience has shown that this is not so. Many teachers spend more time in other businesses than they spend in the work. There have been reported cases of employment of some University Lecturers whose credentials were later found to have been fake or doctored. Unfortunately, many of such quack lecturers had worked in schools for many years turning out graduates before the discovery of their fake certificates.

Some Lecturers using the poor funding of the Universities as excuse decided to make the preparation, printing and selling of handouts their main occupation to the detriment of the diligent discharge of their duties.

Purchase of these handouts became the only way by which a student could be guaranteed a pass mark in any particular course. It did not matter to these lecturers that these so called handouts were simply reproductions of decades old lecture notes utilized by successive generations of lecturers. In recognition of the malady, sales of handouts were subsequently banned in some institutions including ABUAD. However, one of the most shameful indices of the rot in our tertiary institutions is sexual abuse or sex for marks. In some cases, male Lecturers demand sex from their female students as a condition for awarding them pass marks even where such marks are deserved. In other cases, female students themselves offer sex to their lecturers as a way of escaping what they consider the rigors of attending classes, studying, writing and passing examinations. Many of such cases are largely unreported and even where reported, the culprits go unpunished. A lecturer against whom a student compiles compelling evidence will often only earn the sympathy of his colleagues and not the ridicule and disgrace which such conduct would attract in other climes. Thus, most victims would rather find some means of appeasing the errant lecturer than reporting him to the authorities.

Discipline

If a Vice Chancellor has all the funding required, employs qualified and dedicated teachers and he is able to deploy all other resources available towards the achievement of the goal of the institution, he would still need to secure the co-operation of the students. He must necessarily instill discipline in all aspects of the University’s operations.    In present day Nigeria, it cannot be argued that indiscipline is still a problem that militates against the quest of the country to achieve full social, economic and political development. In a paper delivered by A.P Idu and David Olugbade on the subject of indiscipline, it was stated that:  “Indiscipline is the negative form of discipline…..discipline in schools is respect for school laws and regulations and the maintenance of an established standard of behaviour and implies self-control, restraint, respect for oneself and others. A behaviour that contradicts the above becomes indiscipline”

Acts of indiscipline such as abseentism from work, vandalism of public property, truancy, willful disobedience of simple traffic rules are still common occurrence in Nigeria. However, it is to the educational institutions across all the tiers that one must look to find the highest incidents of indiscipline in Nigerian Society. A visit to many Nigerian schools will discover that acts such as cultism, drug abuse, assault, stealing, lateness to school, rioting etc. are common place. Yet this was not the case in the Nigeria of old. Nigerians of adolescent ages now regard the consumption of narcotics such as cocaine, heroin and even marijuana as nothing more than a status symbol of sorts. At parties, drugs are considered a part of the menu and freely given to those willing to accept them. Anyone who doubts this should simply visit some of the Psychiatric Hospitals to find out the number of adolescents receiving treatment for drug induced Psychosis.

To be continued….

AARE AFE BABALOLA, OFR, CON, SAN, LL.D (Lond.)