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From Fred Ezeh
Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman, on Thursday, confirmed that brain drain has hit the education sector, just as being experienced in the health sector where medical doctors and other health care professionals are leaving the country for professional practice broad.
The Minister linked the development to the instability in the education sector, particularly the university system (ASUU strike and renumeration), which made qualified academic and non-academic staff to seek opportunities outside the country.
The Minister, at a meeting with Directors of the Federal Ministry of Education and Heads of Agencies in the Ministry, said that government has begun the process of putting a stop to the development by solving the challenges (low hanging fruits) identified by the institutions through the platform of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).
He said: “The education sector is experiencing brain drain otherwise known as “japa”. Unfortunately, these things are not publicized as it ought to be. We need to put a stop to these brain drain in the education sector to avoid catastrophe that might follow. Tertiary institutions have lost lots of good hands lately due to challenges and hopelessness in the education sector.”
He told the gathering that the recent decision of the President, Ahmed Bola Tinubu, to remove tertiary institutions from the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) platform was one the major steps to achieving the much desired autonomy in the tertiary institutions.
He said: “With this, the universities have regained their autonomy. What the government did recently was to tell all parties to return to the status quo. That the state they were before IPPIS was introduced. Universities are governed by Acts and it’s expected that they operate within the Act. It means that they have the autonomy to recruit and pay their staff.
“The President directed that we develop measures to strengthen the processes to ensure transparency and accountability. With this action of the President, the autonomy of the tertiary institutions is completely restored.
“The Governing Councils of the universities would be constituted very soon to take charge, together with the management of the Universities, on development and implementation of policies and programmes of the universities, academic and otherwise.”
He, however, explained that the recent decision of the President to pay part of the outstanding salaries of the ASUU members is tied to no condition. “We need understanding with these Unions to address issues without necessarily involving strike and strive. As we do this, the issues of instability and disruption in academic calendar would be resolved.
“Instability has been dangerous to our education system. Government and the Unions need to understand each other particularly the challenges that government face. The President said that four months salary be paid to the lecturers in spite of existing court judgement against that decision.”
