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Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi, National President, Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), has said that it is not a crime for lecturers to teach in two different universities.
Ogunyemi, who said this when he appeared on News Agency of Nigeria Forum in Abuja on Sunday, said that the diversity usually offer the opportunity of comparing standards.
He said that teaching in two universities would only add to the system as it would afford the opportunity for lecturers to borrow and learn ideas from each others.
“The university systems allows for what we call Sabbatical. It is part of university tradition and practices all over the world.
“The purpose that it serves is that you create window for peer review. In other words, what you are doing in university A, you go to university B and see whether that is what obtains exactly, or you need to borrow something, or you share some ideas.
“Sabbatical is a mechanism for assuring comparability of standards. Anybody that goes out for sabbaticals, when he or she comes back to the university, he adds value to the system.
“You are bringing something back, no matter how little, to the system. Where you have gone too, they get something from you.
“So, we encourage that from time to time in the university system because universities are regarded as universal places of learning and research,” he said.
Ogunyemi also explained that lecturers, who embarked on sabbaticals, are being paid by both their original employers and the benefiting institution.
According to him, before you go on sabbatical, you must write a proposal on what you want to do for that year; when you come back, you must present the result of what you have done.
“It is like a research/teaching leave; you also go to another place within Nigeria or outside Nigeria to acquire new information, knowledge and bring back the knowledge to add value to your work place.
“So, it is part of the inbuilt mechanism for developing the competencies and skills of the university academics for global competition. So, working in more than one place is not a crime.
“It is not something that is now being debated whether it is moral or immoral, because they are trying to read some moral script into it,’’ he said.
IPPIS: ASUU to support steps aimed at curbing corruption
Speaking on the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS), the National President pledged ASUU readiness to fully support any step that would eradicate corrupt practices from the university system.
Following President Muhammudu Buhari October 8 directive that all government employees must be enrolled into IPPIS to ensure accountability and curb corruption in the system, Ogunyemi said that the union had developed a prototype of the IPPIS, called University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS), which it urged the government to implement rather than the IPPIS.
“2014, February precisely, after much debate about IPPIS, we told the government our reservations about IPPIS and the uniqueness of the universities.
“We thought they agreed with us, they said we should nominate three people and they will also nominate three persons; and then we should come up with a platform that will be acceptable to ASUU.
“We did not hear anything from them, and when they came back in July 2019, it was now a story that government has made up his mind that it is IPPIS.
“The platform we had in mind is the one we have now started because they pushed us to the point of taking on the challenge.
“ASUU will sponsor the development of that platform which we call University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS).
“UTAS came about as a way of showing them that we are not against their war against corruption, that ASUU fully supports any step that will nip corruption in the bud,’’ he said.
Ogunyemi, however, said that the union would resist any move by the Federal Government to move the universities back into core civil service.
He urged the government to implement UTAS and develop a system that would be resident in the universities.
He said this would give government the opportunity to have access to control and monitor activities and progress of the universities.
“The difference between what they are doing now and UTAS is that what they are doing now is just government information system for payment.
“They just send the wage bill for universities into the university account and they ask them to pay and they monitor.
“In the case of UTAS, all the personnel information and the payroll system will be uploaded and there are about five components which we have segmented and developed.
“Not everybody will have access to all of these, so we are saying that the best way to ensure university autonomy is to develop a system that will be resident in the university; but those in government can have access to control and monitor it.
“This will secure and safeguard the autonomy of the universities and that will also give government the opportunity to monitor what is going on in the system as regularly as they want to.
“So if they had cooperated with us in 2014, by now IPPIS would have been another matter. Let me also tell you this as we have argued that this system is not in the best interest of Nigerians,’’ he added.
According to the ASUU president, attempts by the government to impose the enrolment of lecturers on the IPPIS platform is a plot to distract the union from its 2009 renegotiation agreement.
ASUU President decries varsities recruitment system, says some lecturers `just not qualified’
Ogunyemi decried the recruitment system in the universities, regretting that many people not qualified to teach had found their way into the system.
“Some lecturers have no business in the classrooms, but they found their way in due to political interference.
“You find that some lecturers probably have no business being in the universities but you know politics has done so much damage to us that sometimes merit is sacrificed on the altar of mediocrity and political connections.
“We hope that we shall restore the credibility of the system as we have been trying to argue over the years. A key step to achieving that is for government to create the enabling environment for us to go back to the renegotiation table.
“We need to talk more so that we can come up with a new agreement package that will help us in addressing our universities shortcomings in no time,’’ he said.
He noted that such recruitment had done a lot of damage to the university system as not all people in the class are able to teach.
“Teaching is all about passion and not about preference of any sort. It is something natural.”
On why students do not have access to current publication by lecturers, Ogunyemi said that facilities for conducting cutting edge research were in a shambles.
He, however, said that lecturers were doing their best.
“Concerning the publications, Nigerian academics are still doing their best within the limit of their environment. The student population is equally a distraction from research and, without research, you cannot publish.
“Talking about research, one must have access to current materials which is becoming increasingly difficult because our libraries are no longer stocked as regularly as it used to happen in the past.
“The laboratories are bereft of chemicals and reagents. Modern facilities for conducting cutting edge research are hardly there.
“So, when you talk of publications, our colleagues are still publishing, but, may be, you do not see as many books as we used to have in the past.
“And for those who are actually conscious of the implication of what they put into paper, nobody wants to write junk books. We have limitations which we are trying g to overcome,’’ he said.
He said that ASUU would continue to advocate for restoration, resuscitation and repositioning of the university system in order to reclaim its enviable position.
Why students do not get much attention from lecturers – ASUU President
On why students do not get much attention from lecturers, Ogunyemi blamed it on the poor learning environment across universities in the country.
Ogunyemi said that the learning environment in the 1980s and 1990s was quite different from what was currently obtained, stressing that the environment in most universities was no longer conducive for effective learning.
“First, I do not agree with you that they do not pay attention to their students, but, again, you can see that lecturers have hindrances in the discharge of their mandate.
“Lecturers are supposed to do three things – teach, conduct research and carry out community services.
“I have visited a lot of campuses; the environment is not conducive. In our days in the university, we had what we called clinic hours. I started that way in 1988.
“Clinic hours are when students could come freely into my office and we will discuss their problems, academic and otherwise. It was possible because where I was working, we had stable power supply.
“Now, you will see that in some campuses, they will give you light during the office hours, and that is the end, and this clinic hours is best outside office hours.
“Lecturers are not routine workers; lecturers too are under pressure in their offices. They do not have the comfort, they do not have the wherewithal to do their work and students’ populations is more than four times over.’’
Ogunyemi said that relating, communicating and getting to know the students had become difficult as a result of the large population.
According to him, students oftentimes hide under this situation and may not even come to class which makes it difficult for lecturers to track them.
He also highlighted inadequate laboratory and library facilities as some other major hindrances to effective learning.
“So, you find that each time ASUU talks about the universities, these are issues we are trying to track and we bring them to the attention of government.
“That is why even now, we were having a regime of negotiation with the government team led by Dr Wale Babalakin, which was truncated at some point.
“That is why we are trying to engage the issues of funding of universities, universities are now grossly underfunded.
“We are also trying to talk about the conditions of service.
“The fourth area we are engaging is the enabling environment for academics to do their work. I believe academics in Nigeria are still doing their best within our environmental circumstances.
“That is why you still see our products going to universities abroad and still excelling.’’
He noted that the sector had the capacity to breed quality products regardless of the environment, and urged lecturers to give students the needed support.
Ogunyemi emphasised the need for further negotiations with the Federal Government on funding and the provision of adequate learning environment and materials for the development of the education sector.
ASUU working on measures to tackle intimidation of students
Ogunyemi, however, said adequate mechanism has been put in place to tackle cases of intimidation and harassment of students in tertiary institutions.
He was reacting to the rising cases of intimidation of students by lecturers in tertiary schools.
Many university professors have been sacked over the unethical practices that usually involve the demand for sex or money, in exchange for marks.
Last week, the University of Abuja sacked four senior lecturers over similar misdeeds, while some lecturers in other universities have even been prosecuted and jailed.
Ogunyemi, who described the trend as “sad”, said that ASUU had set up an Ethics Committee in every university to ensure that its members did not go out of their bounds.
“ASUU has always been concerned with the conduct of our members and we have put in place mechanisms to ensure that our members don’t go out of their bounds.
“If you check our constitution, we have attached to it what we call `code of practice’. Our code of practice places a lot of emphasis on ethical issues.
“Some of these cases you have mentioned are part of the issues that we are trying to engage and interrogate.
“Contrary to what people say, we do our own internal cleansing, but we don’t see that as the primary issue for our existence. They are issues that just come along the line.
“ What we do basically is, where we have such cases, we do our own investigation, once we can establish a prima facie case, we hand them over to the universities.
“Some of the cases that you later hear about could have even been initiated by the union.’’
Ogunyemi added that the university system had its processes and once cases of intimidation and harassment occur, they are referred to the university disciplinary process who handle such cases.
He advised students to report cases of intimidation and harassment at the ASUU secretariat on the campuses.
“Once the matter gets to us, we shall track the erring lecturer or worker.
“We have our code of practice and anybody that runs foul of our code of practice will not be protected by the union.
“We have never protected anybody; what we always talk about is that any suspect should be taken through the due process.
“ASUU is part of staff disciplinary and professional conduct committee; our union is always represented on the disciplinary committee of every university.
“ If such information gets to our knowledge, we take up such cases and I will always encourage students to go to ASUU secretariat in their campus and see whether something will be done or not.
“In every campus, we have what we call student/staff relations committee and that is what we use to address the issue of sexual harassment, issues of extortion and the rest of them,’’ he said.
The ASUU boss added that every university had put in place counseling centres, and encouraged students to seek counseling at the various centres so as to get justice.