THE
essence of education to the growth and development of any nation cannot
be over emphasised. Education is so crucial to economic growth that any
nation that genuinely hopes to develop must vehemently and consistently
appropriate a large chunk of its budget to developing its educational
sector. This is because without education, no nation would attain
meaningful economic and socio-political development.
.
Now when we talk of our leaders being responsible, what we are saying
is that they should stop paying lip service to the educational sector.
There is no doubt that the best legacy any parent can give to his
children is quality education, so our leaders should realise that there
is an urgent need to overhaul the comatose educational sector in Nigeria
because we cannot develop if we as a nation do not have a sound
educational system. The fact is that there is hardly any segment of our
educational system that does not require urgent attention. From the
primary, secondary to the tertiary education in Nigeria, the same story
of neglect abounds. But this time around, we are tired of promises, so
we want action on the part of the government.
Two months into the nationwide strike embarked upon by the Academic
Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP), the Academic Staff Union of
Universities (ASUU) has now embarked on an indefinite nationwide strike
over the failure of the Federal Government to implement a Memorandum of
Understanding (MOU) signed with ASUU with respect to paying lecturers
‘‘EARN’’ allowance of N12,500 per month. While several moves had been
made on the part of ASUU to ensure that the government implements the
agreement, these had yielded no results over the years hence their
decision to embark on an indefinite nationwide strike as a last resort.
The Nigerian education sector is at present in a state of rot and
perennial neglect by successive governments and one wonders how we can
attain the vision 20:2020 if education is not given utmost priority in
the scheme of things.
ASUU on their part had reduced the ‘‘EARN’’ allowance, which is the
bone of contention, to 80 per cent but the Federal Government agreed to
pay 50 per cent. The issue here is why would a government legally enter
into agreements and renege on such agreements? It beats one’s
imagination that matters regarding education are handled with utmost
levity by the government. Yet we cannot develop if education is
relegated to the background in the scheme of things. There is no
equality in a system where a local government councilor earns three or
four times the salary of a university lecturer. Any system that
relegates teachers’ welfare to the background will definitely produce
half-baked graduates and graduates who cannot prove their mettle in the
labour market. Why would the government wait until lecturers embark on
strike before taking action? Does it mean that strike is the only
language the Nigerian government understands? When are we going to get
to a time when lecturers will no longer embark on strikes in Nigeria?
It is evident that strikes are really paralysing the already comatose
education sector. With the current insecurity in Nigeria, why would a
government allow our tertiary institution students to waste their
talents at home or roam the streets when they can be meaningfully
engaged in the classroom? Some of these students who are now idle hands
could be tempted to engage in nefarious activities or join criminal
gangs to perpetrate crimes. An idle mind is definitely the devil’s
workshop so the government must as a matter of urgency act to ensure it
resolves the issues with the polytechnic and university lecturers so
that these students can go back to school. The strike will not do anyone
any good; it will only end up crippling an already ailing education
sector. We were recently told by the Federal Ministry of Education that
only about 500,000 applicants will eventually get admission into our
tertiary institutions in 2013 out of about 1.7 million that sat for
the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) conducted by the
Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) last April. Many
eligible applicants are denied admission placements due to shortage of
space in our institutions and there is shortage of space because these
institutions lack the requisite facilities to accommodate them.
One of the reasons why the education sector has degenerated to this
sorry state is that the government keeps paying lip service to it with
no proactive steps to forestall it. I think declaring a state of
emergency in the education sector is long overdue to forestall a total
collapse of the sector. A lot of reforms are urgently required in the
sector. The government can do this if it is really serious in addressing
the problems there. We are a country where so many talented people
abound. But one sure way to discover and tap them for the benefit of the
nation is when people have sound education.
The Federal Government should urgently call ASUP and ASUU to a
roundtable and iron out the issues with them so that they can call off
the strike as soon as possible to avoid the negative consequences of
these avoidable strikes. We want action now from the government and not
unending but empty promises. It is high time we discouraged strike as
the only tool that can coerce the government into action on matters of
public concern.
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