Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Fwd: SUNDAY MUSINGS: On the Matter of Ongoing Universities' Strike in Nigeria

Bolaji,

Thanks for another reasoned and reasonable prescriptive intervention on the ASUU/FG wahala. You raise a crucial issue regarding how higher education is funded or not funded, namely the tendency of the Federal Government, through the regulatory agency of the NUC presumably, to dictate projects to institutions without consideration for each institution's peculiar needs. The FG is clearly overbearing in this respect, but it seems to me that this problem stems partly from ASUU's methodology of struggle, which is to ask for funding, celebrate the successes of such funding quests, and then think belatedly about the specifics of this funding. The failure of ASUU to tie the repeated requests for funding to specific items that would SOLVE specific problems in each institution as opposed to simply giving the appearance of general infrastructural face lift is a problem. In some ways ASUU has become a casualty of its earlier successes. As you suggest, there has been some concrete efforts, TETFUND included, to increase funding for universities. The credit for this  must go to ASUU and its past struggles. But as these modest improvements in funding have occurred, ASUU seems to have become confounded as to how to legitimize their struggle for better terms of service. The old strategy of tying the pecuniary demands for better pay, allowances, and perks to narratives of institutional and fiscal deficiency persisted despite the two seemingly becoming unglued. 

The quest for infrastructure funding (especially hostels and classrooms, which guaranteed support from students and parents during previous strikes) lost some of its allure, Nigerians being the impressionable, low expectation species that they are. Completely failing to discern this shift, ASUU has continued to make funding, articulated in nebulous and general terms, the anchor for its struggle, at a time when the public, rightly or wrongly, perceives that battle to have been (partly) won. Further, ASUU has continued to push strikes as the means to achieve this poorly articulated struggle for "funding" despite the apparent problems of perception that strikes cause and the erosion of public goodwill and social capital that they generate.

The union has misread the Nigerian public wrong. There is still some sympathy for ASUU because the FG is a rascally arena of privilege and waste and because parents and students recognize that for the practical purpose of getting students back on campus they have to help push for a resolution in favor of ASUU. Over the years, ASUU members mistook this residual but fast-dissipating sympathy for support. Thus, instead of working to earn support from the public for their struggle, they persisted in the old template of strikes and pecuniary demands baptised with the legitimizing rhetoric of funding.

Without connecting these funding demands, already poorly framed, to the amelioration of visible and growing problems that go beyond infrastructure, and as some funding improvements have occurred, ASUU has struggled in recent years to retain its image as a progress catalyst of reform in Nigerian higher education. One example will suffice. The quality of instruction in Nigerian universities is extremely poor. I am taking the strategic risk of generalization here, but my essential point is right and we all know it. I saw and experienced poor instruction myself. From what one hears from relatives and honest insiders, the problem is worse than one imagines. ASUU could have tied some of the funding requests, regardless of their legitimizing functions, to the long overdue need to improve instruction in our universities by equipping existing and new classrooms with multimedia instructional materials. This would have resonated with a public that is well aware of the poor products of universities resulting largely from poor instruction.  ASUU has not done this because most of its members resent new burdens and responsibilities. Worse, most of them are computer illiterate and will resist the reorientation and reeducation required to become better, more effective and technology-savvy teachers in the age of smart classrooms and interactive teaching. They will rebel against their own leadership and invoke university autonomy to justify this pedagogical laziness and complacency.

A friend, a lecturer in a Nigerian university, decided on his own to spruce up his teaching and dipped into his pocket to purchase the full range of technological gadgets necessary to sustain a PowerPoint lecture, including a power generating set. He told me that his colleagues derided his pedagogical ambitions and investments repeatedly. He became the butt of jokes among his colleagues who told him that he was wasting his time and resources. They were content with the (in)famous tendency of Nigerian lecturers to dictate lectures from worn, dog-eared lecture notebooks with outmoded materials. They were not curious about the audiovisual pedagogical revolution going on around the world.

In July, I hung out with the great Professor Okello Oculi and another scholar friend in an Abuja nightspot. My visit coinciding with the strike action, the industrial action dominated our conversation. Professor Oculi and me posed very critical questions on the diminishing returns and fading sociopolitical capital of ASUU, urging a reexamination of its mechanism of struggle. Our friend, a committed ASUU supporter with inside insights into the workings of the ASUU top echelon agreed with us that instruction is poor largely because the university system is saddled with many lecturers who, in his word, have no business in the academy. Yet when Oculi and I argued that ASUU should be raising those quality-related issues and leading the fight for instructional quality control and research professionalization, and that this would bring a strike-weary public to the union's side, our friend balked, saying that ASUU would be undermining and directly indicting MOST of its members. No union would do that, he argued. Fair enough. But how about initiating the conversation or contributing robustly to creative ways in which the problem of poor instruction can be tackled. 

Then I raised the fact that, while asking for perks and allowances and comparing its members to national legislators, ASUU seems comfortable with a situation in which lecturers are not accountable to their students in any form. I suggested that ASUU demonstrate to Nigerians the sincerity of its struggle for institutional reform as well as its commitment to students by broaching the topic of student evaluation in whatever form compatible with Nigeria's cultural and institutional peculiarities. Our friend again argued that ASUU would not do that because if it did it would face a rebellion from its members. This struck me as tragic, since it suggested to me that ASUU members were reluctant to (even perfunctorily) subject themselves to measures of accountability that they routinely recommend for public officials. ASUU seems comfortable with a broken status quo in which the consumers of their instructional products, their primary constituents, and paying stakeholders in Nigerian higher education, the very students that they claim glibly to be fighting for, have no say in or a platform to contribute to the evaluation of lecturers' performance. It suggests a certain comfort with impunity on the part of lecturers. In practical terms, it means that no matter how poor and ineffective a lecturer is as an instructor, he or she may never get a chance to find out from his/her students what is working or not working in his/her classroom and what to do to improve the effectiveness of the classroom experience for students. This, to me, shortchanges both students and lecturers. It also means that there is no reward for instructional excellence, no incentive for self-directed instructional improvements, and, most tragically, no punishment or correction for poor teaching. 

Our ASUU-defending friend agreed with EVERY single problem Oculi and me pointed out with ASUU's flaws and with the problematic resistance of lecturers to reform and quality control suggestions. But, like most ASUU sympathizers, his instinct was to keep defending ASUU's unwillingness to reexamine its methodology and to frontally confront the recalcitrance of its members in the interest of the students whose future it claims to be seeking to secure. Although I respected his honest disclosures and his willingness to concede the egregious deterioration in instructional and research standards, I came away unconvinced by his defensiveness, especially since his own indictment of Nigerian lecturers went beyond mine and was peppered for good measure with experiential tit bits that were as revealing as they were scandalous.

On Sun, Sep 8, 2013 at 6:02 AM, Assensoh, Akwasi B. <aassenso@indiana.edu> wrote:

VC Aluko:

 

What a majestic and eloquent way of keeping us abreast of the nuances and logistics of the Universities' Strike we have been reading about. Such strikes -- whether in Nigeria or in Ghana - often reminded me of my dear late father, who never tolerated any of his 48 sons and daughters (from his six wives) to get involved in any type of campus disturbance(s), including student strikes when we were growing up.  His fatherly dictum or "decree" was: "You were not sent to school to be involved in strikes..."

 

Well, as a friend from an African country told me about a strike in his country, sometimes, some Lecturers or Professors have their own private agenda to carry out during the period of strikes. Imagine, if a Lecturer is completing a difficult book manuscript, and there is a strike: now, he would have all the needed time to crack the research and the writing! Is that not a possibility? Hopefully, there will be a solution for your cousin to return to complete his degree and enjoy NYSC like his compatriots, who finished before the strike.

 

Many thanks for your wise and generous way of sharing information!

 

A.B. Assensoh.  

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From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] on behalf of Mobolaji Aluko [alukome@gmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, September 08, 2013 5:54 AM
To: NaijaPolitics e-Group; nigerianid@yahoogroups.com; ekiti ekitigroups; naijaintellects; OmoOdua; Ra'ayi; Yan Arewa; NiDAN; USAAfrica Dialogue
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Fwd: SUNDAY MUSINGS: On the Matter of Ongoing Universities' Strike in Nigeria

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SUNDAY MUSINGS: On the Matter of Ongoing Universities' Strike in Nigeria

by

Mobolaji  E. Aluko, PhD

alukome@gmail.com

 

September 8, 2013

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Dabbling into ASUU-Federal Government negotiations matters as I intend to do in this short piece is always "risky business" because of very many hardened positions over time, and due to fundamental lack of trust on all sides.  However, with what is at stake in human capital and socio-economic development of the country when it comes to tertiary education - and education in general -  it is worth the risk.

I write below as an individual, but cannot escape the fact that I am Vice-Chancellor of a federal university - a fledgling one at that at Otuoke, Bayelsa State, currently with only about 700 students, and for now without ASUU, NASU, SSANU or NAAT membership. Consequently, FU Otuoke has not been on strike as all public universities (except for a handful) have been under ASUU mandate for ten weeks now since July 1, 2013, with no end in sight.   I also write,  remembering that my sabbatical leave to Nigeria from my Howard University base in the United States during the 2002/2003 academic session at the then University of Ado-Ekiti UNAD (now Ekiti State University EKSU) was truncated in January 2003 due to a total all-unions national universities' strike that lasted from December 2002 to July 2003.  That strike was a result of a 2001 Agreement with ASUU (due for re-negotiation every three years) that was not fulfilled by the Federal Government; re-negotiation was not re-opened until 2007, which lasted for two years and resulted in the present 2009 Agreement that is yet again under contention.

With that preface, I sincerely wish for a speedy resolution to the current universities' crisis in the country so that our colleagues and their students can resume normal academic activities in the shortest possible time.  Government should bend, and ASUU should do likewise in a spirit of give-and-take on all sides.

We first must admit that initial negotiations on these matters causing the imbroglio were flawed in the first instance because the hard total financial implications (in terms of Naira and Kobo, that is) were never placed on the table at the time of negotiation - one hears that these numbers did not even become fully known until February 2013.   Rather, agreements were based on general principles of what needed to be done and paid for or not, at what rates and to who, not only with ASUU (Academic Staff Union of Universities), but with SSANU (Senior  Staff Association of Nigerian Universities),  NASU (Junior Staff;  Non-Academic Staff Union), and NAAT (National Association of Academic Technologists), each feeding off of each other's most-recently successful negotiations. Episodic exasperation and frustration caused these serious lapses - which happened twice, first in 2009 (when negotiations were with a high-powered Federal government team led by Chief Gamaliel Onosode), and secondly in 2012 (when the Secretary to the Government of the Federation Pius Anyim took over to draw up a Memorandum of Understanding.). Now that the Federal Government has realised what it agreed to, it is balking - and ASUU is fully and understandably not buying it, calling it an unacceptable reneging on promises.

However this stalemate situation cannot continue forever, as our tertiary institutional spirit is being drained and damaged by the day., For example, a cousin of mine in a federal institution who would have graduated the very month that the universities' strike began is now sitting idly at home, wondering what will happen to him.  He was hoping to join the NYSC batch this year, but that hope is now lost...next year, maybe - and possibly more idle time while waiting for call-up.  I am sure that similar stories abound of suffering and dispirited students nationwide.

The three major issues on the table now - and my own suggestions as an individual -   are as follows:

    - percentage of money spent on education in the Federal Budget. Government must definitely commit to an increase from the present allocation (one hears or reads various percentages, as low as 9%) to as close to 26% as it can get over a time definite (say five years, ten years), after calculating exactly how much it is spending on education across various sectors.  We should not consider only money committed to the Federal Ministry of Education.  The states should also be called upon to ante up their commitments.  It would be beneficial to spell out percentages to Education Bureaucracy, Primary, Secondary, Tertiary, Adult and Vocational Education sectors, as well as allocations in each of those six sectors to Infrastructure, Instructional Materials,  Personnel and Overhead. A new and bold vision for Education n the country is definitely needed, linked to Jobs/Employment, Socio-Economic Development and Technological Needs.

   - money to be spent on University infrastructure as an outcome of the 2009 Needs Assessment Report.  Government has distributed letters in my presence (in a recent gathering of Pro-Chancellors and Vice-Chancellors in August) in Abuja granting N100 billion to 61 universities.  In this distribution, most First Generation Universities got N3 billion each, 2nd Generation got N2 billion each, etc. and state universities - in a bonanza that they would not otherwise get from the Federal Government - got about N1 billion each.  I saw the letters myself -  I merely peeped, because Otuoke got no money under this category since the university was NOT in existence at the time of the Needs Assessment; only 27 federal and 34 state universities got anything.   Unfortunately, these letters also spelt out what amount each university should spend in various categories, with hostels getting as high as 67% in many if not most of the allocations.. I strongly believe and advise that ASUU should back-pedal on its N500-billion-now-or-nothing stance, but rather INSIST that each university council be ALLOWED to determine how it spends its money within the Needs assessment deficiencies identified and their PRESENT status relative to those deficiencies, rather than the line-item expenditures that the letters to the universities spelt out. That would be in the spirit of the autonomy of universities, which we must not confuse with independence since we still depend on government funding. For example, Federal Government should not ask a university to spend N2 billion on hostels when hostels are NOT its priority....it may be for some, but not for others.   I heard a Vice-Chancellor lament privately that his hostels are currently only 70% occupied, and that building more hostels would mean more overhead, expenditures that cannot be covered in light of the limits of bed space costs and school fees imposed by government. .  Certain deficiencies may have been identified in their Needs Assessment in 2007/2009, but those may have since been solved.  Government  should also commit to spending this N100 billion for the next three years as a clearly BUDGETED ITEM starting with the 2014 Budget being called for now, but it should  remember to include the new universities next year and going forward - including Otuoke ! Government should also give an assurance - and this is clearly verifiable with time - that the average annual expenditure that TetFUND has been statutorily spending on all universities in the past several years will not be affected by this fresh annual injection of N100 billion.

  - the issue of earned allowances....this is the sticky wicket.  The gap of funding is N30 billion  that has just been given (apparently once and no more) by Federal Government to N87 billion/N92 billion  being demanded strenuously by ASUU on behalf of both academic and non-academic staff.  (By the way, Otuoke got N33 million in this category for payment of earned allowances.)  This is where there should be most give-and-take, because certainly, the universities themselves CANNOT make up this difference from Internally Generated Revenue (IGR).. To break the impasse,  Federal Government should commit to REPEATING this N30 billion funding in August every year for the next two years (again as a BUDGETED ITEM starting with the 2014 Budget), so that at the end, it would have committed the N90 billion that ASUU seeks for the university system and not for itself.   ASUU should readily concede to this graduated measure.

Finally, the position of the Committee of (public university) Vice-Chancellors (CVC) to which I belong can be encapsulated as a pragmatic one as follows: "Let us take all this money first and spend it wisely as determined within each university - a bird in hand is worth more than a thousand in the bush."  However,  unless students and staff return to their campuses, it would be difficult or impossible to get or spend the money at all - a total of N130 billion.

And a billion in any currency, even cowrie shells,  is a lotta money.

And there you have it.

 

Bolaji Aluko

Otuoke, Bayelsa State

 

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