In a recent release, UNESCO stated that
while education is a basic human right essential for the exercise of all
other rights, there are still 774 million illiterates in the world and
many more adult women and men who are not consistently learning what
they need to lead healthy, fulfilling and productive lives. This it says
is because of a combination of several factors making timely quality
education a distant dream.
I reflected on these words and safely
concluded that one of the factors that we can surely not avoid that has
sufficiently served to distract the education system is strike. A
product of both sides of the divide myself including Nigerian
universities, I recall a time we practically lost a whole session to
strikes and many in between that saw us graduate two-three years after
our more fortunate peers whose privileged parents transferred overseas.
I’m still not sure the victims will forget those years so soon.
Continue reading after the cut....
Sadly, the situation has not been too
different in recent times. To many at this moment, there appears a
systematic design to unconsciously destroy what is left of the near
crippled education system by the duo of the Academic Staff Union of
Universities and the Federal Government. The last time I checked, most
university calendars, for those who had, have become permanently
distorted. This has increased the state of vulnerability of the
institutions and called for a quick declaration of a state of emergency
in the sector and save what is left of the nervous wreck of a group
called students!
So, below are highlights of my thoughts on the impact of this menace;
1. Public enemy….employers’ dilemma
That there is a demand for qualified
employees is not in doubt, what is classically doubtful is if the
employers will have the privilege of getting such employees. This is
also considering the current situation where over 70 per cent of
eventual graduates are alleged to be “half baked” with 10 per cent
barely knowing why they went to school and the 20 per cent who think
they have what it takes, worry as they may realise early that skills and
connections for eventual employment are a world apart!
2. While the real reason for embarking
on the strikes become blurred by the day, what is as clear as crystal is
that the youths are disillusioned with many taking on intriguing tasks
to survive or for sustenance while they await resumption.
3. Reasonable demands or presumptuous requests?
Thus far, ASUU claims its demands are
valid and strategic, from the review of retirement age of professors to
progressive increase of budgetary allocations to the education sector by
26 per cent among other demands. One reasons that these demands perhaps
should be the statutory responsibilities of the Federal Government
towards the universities. So, after reneging on a host of agreements in
the past, won’t many simply conclude that the government is becoming
insincere in its dealings with ASUU? This was captured clearly in the
words of the Minister for Labour and Productivity, Chukwuemeka Wogu, who
declared that, “the agreements reached will be impossible to
implement.” This no doubt is a strategic feedback that broke the camel’s
back and put a seal to continued strike. Now, each party is seemingly
adamant, unyielding and hardly appears concerned about the consequences
of its stance, an impasse that has done more harm than good.
4. Increasing mediocrity, loss of productive force
Surely with continued destruction of the
education system, one can conclude that we would be left with
mediocrity and supposed students cut off from quality knowledge that
would have supported national development.
5. Increase brain drain and foreign expert influx
Considering that nature abhors any
vacuum. increased possible brain drain will only add to the influx of
foreigners who would be more than willing to exploit the gaps and
proceed with the once dreaded imperialistic norms and colonialist
tendencies
6. Unequal yoke between the past and the future
The past challenge as posed by the
non-implementation of the “agreement” is denying the future of many
students the privilege of stable education. Dreams are being destroyed
by the day as most ladies would simply get into the family way while
some men simply get unduly distracted and hardly are able to return to
school, hopes then become dashed.
7. Loss of fundamental expectations
Due to most universities without
functional libraries that would have aided the promotion of healthy and
highly recommended reading habit, home reading becomes a painful
activity so the books, during any strike, simply gather dust. Even in
session, most schools have laboratories that have become museums,
libraries that are comparable to archives, lecture notes that are simply
drab historic texts, outdated curriculum fiercely turning graduates to
job seekers since the reward for innovation is rare. Theses and
dissertations are no more issue-based and therefore not guided to
address priority development issues. The educational giant of Africa,
sadly, lays asleep.
8. The gap in workforce
A student not properly equipped would
surely not suffice when the need for solid workforce arises tomorrow.
Making it naturally appears that the education system is simply
certificate-driven as against expertise-driven, so graduates churned out
could possess the tendency to derail society tomorrow except the
inherent value system in them comes to bear. In a world that is
need-driven, it is most likely he who the cap fits in this regard to
address these needs will rule the day.
9. Grave deficiencies….little successes.
The issues around entry into
universities including the now infamous post-UTME are already a
challenge to many, worse is then when you enter and get thrown back home
in the name of strike making a horrible situation hellish. The
retrogression that follows the total neglect of objectivity and
excellence by those who should guide a system is appalling.
10. ASUU strikes, intellectual deficit
and the transition to private, more expensive universities become the
case as parents struggle to find alternative education for their kids.
The private universities, irrespective of capacity, get richer at the
expense of the public ones on strike.
So, you will therefore imagine that even
when I could not initially comprehend his statement, I reasoned that
his views may have some valid points within them and with that I refer
to Patrick Obahiagbon, who said, “This ASUU strike is a miasma of a
depreciable apotheosis of an hemorrhaging plutocracy, cascadingly oozing
into a malodorous excrescence of mobocracy. With all termagant
ossifying proclivities of a kakistocracy, our knowledgia centura is
enveloped in a paraplegic crinkum crankum. Therefore, ASUU, cest in
déjà, déjà peret ologomabia.”
Well, need I say more, Obahiagbon’s
words are as intriguing as ASUU strike itself and so to decipher the
meaning, one needs to sit down, dissect it, eliminate the mundane and
pick out the strategic terms and action to address the root causes of a
problem that could define a lasting solution. Don’t we all agree that
these same steps should be what ASUU and the Federal Government should
urgently take? I rest my case.
- Ms. Ogbanga, an educationist, is director, Centre for Development Support Initiatives, Port Harcourt. cedsinigeria@yahoo.com
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