The reported shortage of lecturers in Nigerian universities did not come to many Nigerians as a surprise. Some branches of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) were quoted recently to have blamed the situation on the bid by some of these lecturers to seek greener pastures abroad. This is called Japa syndrome in local parlance.
ASUU also reportedly associated the problem with the implementation of the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS) and high number of retirements in the universities. Lecturers also contend with poor working conditions amid the general hardship in the country.
Even some members of the Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions (NASU) and the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) are also leaving the citadels of learning. Just like the academic staff, they too face poor wages and allowances and have had to embark on strikes in some cases to press home their demands for better welfare.
NASU strikes, however, do not come close to the havoc frequent strikes by ASUU have caused to the university system. In 2020, the nation lost a full academic year to ASUU strike. Last year, the same thing happened as similar strike crippled activities in our universities. Government withheld their salaries as a form of punishment. But this worsened the situation and prompted many of the lecturers to either do menial jobs to survive or leave the university system entirely. ASUU had entered into a memorandum of understanding with the government since 2009. But the federal government has failed to fully fulfill its part of the agreements, including a promise to renegotiate the conditions of service of academic staff.
Besides, government has not stopped the implementation of IPPIS as demanded by ASUU. It introduced the system partly to curb the problem of ghost workers and payment of multiple salaries to some civil servants. But the system made it impossible for the universities to easily employ workers as they have to seek approval from the federal government to be able to do so. Most times, such approvals are hard to get. ASUU had proposed an alternative which it calls University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS). Government said UTAS failed integrity and credibility test conducted by the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA).
Nevertheless, the federal government claimed last year to have paid N92 billion to cover earned allowances and revitalization funds to federal universities. This pales to insignificance when compared with the N1.3 trillion it promised to inject in six tranches for the revitalization of public universities. It released the first tranche of N200 billion in 2013 but could not meet up with N220 billion it was supposed to pay each year for the five subsequent years.
Consequently, the state of infrastructure in most of our universities remains an eyesore. Libraries and some other learning facilities are antiquated. Hostel facilities are poor and inadequate.
In the midst of these problems, our lawmakers decided to push for the establishment of 32 new universities. This is gross misplacement of priority. Rather than call for new universities, what we need to do is to consolidate on the existing ones and ensure global standards. We had better products when we had fewer universities. Good education does not mean having hundreds of universities. Quality should be our watchword, not number.
The poor state of our universities calls for a review of our education policy. Lecturers need to be motivated. When one is poorly paid, one can’t put in one’s best. This is partly what has affected quality and standard of education in the country. It has also led many Nigerians who have the means to migrate to foreign universities to acquire quality education. Little wonder most Nigerian universities lag behind in world’s university ranking.
We suggest that the resources we waste on politicians and political office-holders should be ploughed back into education. There is no reason politicians should earn more than lecturers. Recently, many Nigerians condemned the purchase of luxury vehicles for federal lawmakers in the midst of general poverty in the land. The Sport Utility Vehicles cost the nation a total of N57.6 billion. One of it is said to cost as much as N160 million. A lecturer may never be able to earn this amount of money in his entire working life.
Teachers are supposed to be at the heart of education recovery. But this is not so in Nigeria. Many qualified persons shy away from joining the profession partly because of poor remuneration.
Education is one of the sectors any responsible government pays serious attention to. The federal government should beef up budgetary allocation to the sector. It should begin to prioritize the welfare of lecturers in order to encourage them and to make the profession attractive to more people. It should also continuously dialogue and negotiate with ASUU with a view to meeting some of their pressing demands.