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TheNewsGuru.com (TNG), poised to become a leading voice in delivering incisive and succinct reports on education in Nigeria, has launched an education desk.
TNG, through the education desk, will especially report on the ongoing impasse between the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and the federal government with a view to bringing both parties to a point of compromise.
Recall that Nigerian public universities have been shut down since February 14, 2022 as a result of the disagreement between the FGN and ASUU. Unfortunately, the general public seems to be uninformed or at best, misinformed about the precarious nature of the intractable ASUU strikes.
For the sake of clarity, it is important to paint vivid pictures of Nigerian Universities’ realities from a better perspective. The public need to realize the enormity of the problems posed by the current closure of our public universities.
Before now, Nigerian universities were already operating a fractured programme and were in the recovery mode from the impact of COVID-19 and the 2020 ASUU strike. A session had been lost as a result of the school’s closure in 2020.
By the time schools reopened by the end of 2020, many universities were engaged in accelerated marathon academic programmes to recover the lost years and meet up with the already disrupted academic calendar.
Unfortunately, that was far from realized as the strike reared up again due to the Federal Government’s failure to honour the series of agreements reached with ASUU. Now, universities will have a backlog of students on the admission queue as two sets of Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations (UTME) have been conducted, yet, the 2020/2021 academic calendar was yet to be covered.
What this means is that universities will have to perform the magic of covering 2020/2021, 2021/2022, and now 2022/2023 academic sessions by whatever means to produce results. How this will be achieved remains a puzzle for everyone to unravel.
This is to tell us the magnitude of the challenges that the current industrial conflict pose and why all hands must be on deck to bring all concerned parties, especially the Federal Government to save the soul of the Nigerian University education and indeed the general public education system.
This is the sole aim of the TNG ASUU Education news desk.
For memory’s sake, ASUU-Federal Government conflicts have a long history that is worth recounting.
ASUU was established in 1978 as a response to the need to address the deterioration of education in the country, especially under military rule.
From history, the genuine intention behind the establishment of ASUU has always been misconstrued to be politically motivated. And this is despite the fact that available evidence has shown that the root cause of the incessant ASUU-Federal Government industrial conflict is hinged on poor remuneration that results in high brain drain among the academic staff of Nigerian Universities as well as poor working conditions.
From the National Universities Commission records, ASUU has embarked on strikes over 23 times between 1992 to 2013 and over three times under the present administration between 2017 and 2022.
The causes always range from funding for universities’ revitalization; funding of state universities; establishment of Academic Staff’s pension scheme (NUPEMCO); increasing annual budgetary allocation to education up to 20%; payment of Earned Academic Allowances; amendment of pension and/or retirement age of academics on the professorial cadre from 65 to 70 years; reinstatement of university councils that were prematurely dissolved; and upholding universities’ autonomy among other demands.
Presently, the Nigerian government spends less than 9% of its total annual budget on education and allocations to the Nigerian Universities fall below UNESCO’s 26% standard.
Again, the average ratio of teaching staff to students is 1:100 in most universities as opposed to the standard maintained in universities of advanced countries such as Harvard University, 1:4 etc and far higher than the Nigerian Universities Commission’s (NUC) prescribed 1:30 ratio.
It is also very important to recall the current United Nations Education Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) report that Nigeria now has 20 million cases of out-of-school children which is the highest record in the history of the nation.
These realities make it very imperative to beam an in-depth searchlight on the Nation’s education sector in general and the Nigerian public universities in particular with the ASUU-FGN imbroglio in focus with the intention to tease out meaning from the entire conflagration for a possible lasting solution.
The TNG Edu-desk will be anchored by Dr. Gregory Obinna Ugbo. Dr. Ugbo is an early-career lecturer and researcher in the Department of Mass Communication, Federal Universities, Oye-Ekiti where he teaches courses in Media Research and Media and Society.
The Edu-desk will be further enriched with the contributions of experienced professors in the field of communication and journalism.
Thus, Professors Charles Okigbo, who is an Emeritus Professor of Strategic Communication at North Dakota State University; Prof. Adamu, Ladi Sandra who is the first Professor of Broadcasting in Northern Nigeria, a seasoned scholar and journalist; and Professor Musa Muhammed, a Professor of Communication at the Department of Media and Creative Industries, United Arab Emirates University, will furnish the readers with scintillating reports and perspectives on the issues around the education system in Nigeria.
Special reports on the TNG Edu-desk can be accessed here
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