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- Says salary has not changed since 2009
By Gabriel Dike, Lagos
Lecturers in the Nigerian University System (NUS) are worse paid in West African, says the Vice Chancellor, University of Lagos (UNILAG), Prof. Folasade Ogunsola.
The first female UNILAG VC, who disclosed this at a media parley in Lagos, said salary of Nigerian lecturers have not changed since 2009.
She added: “We receive the worse salary in West Africa. The last major salary increase Nigerian lecturers enjoyed was in 2009 after the Federal Government and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) negotiation.”
Prof Ogunsola also acknowledged that poor funding has affected the running of public universities leading to dilapidated facilities on various campuses and exit of some lecturers.
The VC explained that the education sector in 2023 was tough in many areas, stating, “the state of the nation’s education was not favourable. The sector came to a cross road including funding of universities.”
She said as a result of the poor state of affairs in the universities occasioned by inadequate funding, it witnessed a tsunami of exit of the best brain in the university.
“It requires a lot of investment to run university education in the country. The present funding model should be looked at. We need to work out the issue of funding. The dearth of lecturers has affected the system and to check the trend, the salary of lecturers has to changed to attract qualified hands.”
On achievements, Ogunsola said UNILAG under her administration attracted N11billion research grants an indication that the university lecturers are working hard in various research fields.
She disclosed that the university is in the process of building four hostels while renovation is ongoing in other halls of residence.
Prof Ogunsola revealed that the university has unbundled some courses to meet the present reality, adding, “we concluded the restructuring and unbundling of the courses.”
