It is no longer news that Nigeria’s educational sector is in shambles. United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) recommends a minimum of 26 percent of states’ and federal annual budgets to education. The highest the federal government had reached was 11 percent (under the military regime of Abdudalam Abubakar), and for the civilian government of Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan, the first set of graduates to rule this country, it was a mere 7.2 percent. The budgetary allocations to education have remained lower than the above rates. This means a gross under-funding of education.
Under-funding has led to many other problems. These include: University libraries are overcrowded and without relevance and up-to-date texts and journals; hostels, classrooms and lecture theatres are overcrowded and hence unhealthy to live or learn in; laboratories still lack the required equipment, chemicals and reagents; teaching hospitals are mere consulting institutions, without the necessary equipment, drugs and other materials. They now graduate poor quality and half-baked doctors; lecturers work without offices, accommodation and other facilities like research grants, laptops, publications/conference allowances and cars. It also means that the problem of brain drain will remain with us, and school administrators are unable to acquire needed materials for the effective and efficient running of the system. This means that there will continue to be shortage of water and electricity supply and poor sanitation.
The crises have recently been exacerbated by the introduction of Integrated Payroll and Personal Information System (IPPIS) with all its attendant challenges. ASUU rejected it out-rightly. The other unions in the university system that quickly enlisted into the scheme have written to the Federal Government to indicate their discontinuation in the scheme. Some Vice Chancellors wanted to use IPPIS to ingratiate themselves with the federal government or for superiority or ego battle with their local ASUU leaders. Today, everybody is on the same page, of non-payment, under payments and gross irregularities in the scheme. My message to ASUU members is simple. Learn to obey your union; make sacrifices for it; and suffer some temporary discomfort. Above all, don’t be rubber stamps to any administrator. Shun use and dump syndrome. Have some honour! Serious academics should not be cheap, worst still very cheap and condescending. During the military regimes, at various times, university lecturers were not paid salaries for 9 months, 6 months and 4 months. They did not die. That was our own contribution to nation building. And it is continuous until we get there – the desired level.I will return to the role of Vice Chancellors in the challenges of university education in Nigeria shortly.
Without adequate funding of the school system, students will continue to agitate, academic and non-academic staff will continue to undertake strike actions and the school system will continue to be disrupted and we will continue to produce low quality or ‘handout’ graduates. Our graduates are also seen as educated illiterates. It is important to note that under funding affects all levels of education – primary, secondary and tertiary, hence the proliferation of private educational institutions.
Pretentious or fake Nigerians are not only limited to politicians or public servants alone. They are found everywhere. Private school proprietors will be busy campaigning about the quality of their schools, meanwhile, their children are schooling in other ‘higher quality’ schools. In those days, it is common to see principals and headmasters moving about with their children to whichever public school they were posted or transferred to. With this patriotic act, people and parents had confidence in these public schools. The Nzenwas of Nsirimo in Umuahia South LGA, Abia State; the Ekechukwus, Ahanekus, Anosikes in Nnarambia, the Okonkwos, Okafors (of Akpim, Okirika-Nweke), all in Ahaizu-Mbaise LGA, Imo State were renowned educationists (Head teachers, authors and teachers) and their children were taught in all the public schools, they were posted or transferred to. We had such dedicated and selfless educationists all over the country. They were role models. Today, all their children and grandchildren are successful and prominent in the society.
In 2012, when my first son was to enter secondary school, the proprietor of the primary school where he finished kept campaigning to me and other parents to bring our children to her secondary school – according to her ‘Our secondary school has highly trained and dedicated teachers and first-rate facilities’. I laughed as she was busy marketing her school. I looked straight into her face and pointedly told her that the last school my son and other sons will attend will be hers. She asked why! I informed her that if your secondary school was that good or superb, why are all your children in a particular school (name withheld) in a state in South-West, Nigeria? She was shocked on hearing this. I educated her on what most principals and headmasters of public schools used to do. That proprietors of private schools should use their own children and relations to show-case the quality of their schools and not other people’s children.
Church owners, generally known as General overseers (GOs), will build schools with members’ tithes, offerings and all manners of seeds. At the end, the costs of schooling in those schools – primary, secondary, tertiary built with members’ financial contributions will be far beyond the capacity of majority of members. Look around, you will see such schools. They are in Nigeria here. Dogmatism, gullibility or even ignorance cannot allow members of these churches to decipher the mercantilist cum exploitative disposition of the GOs.
I have been lecturing in public universities for over 32 years. My friends and colleagues know that I have a simple, innocuous, confidence-boasting policy – all my children will earn their first degrees in public universities and in Nigeria. My daughter graduated from my university – UNIPORT. My first son is in a public university. My second son has passed JAMB, for a public university. And my last son will earn his first degree in a public university. Sometimes, I ask some of my colleagues whose children are in private universities what impressions they are creating! That they have money and can afford private university education; or that they don’t have confidence in what they (themselves) are teaching other people’s children/wards; or what? A major reason why people including lecturers send their children/wards to private universities is the insincerity of government, politicians and top public officials to education in Nigeria. This is in addition to incessant strikes in the public schools. The originators, owners, and key operators of capitalism and free market economies, still operate effectively and efficiently, many public-sector organisations in health, banking, education, transportation, tourism, etc, yet in Nigeria, politicians want to kill public education by every means possible.
Prof. B. Chima Onuoha
(Onuoha, a professor of Management and a former ASUU leader, writes from University of Port Harcourt)
