The current industrial action embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union of University (ASUU) makes it 16 such events since the inception of this republic. The incessant strike by the union which always cripples the academic calendar has outlived successive administrations since 1999 up to this current one.
No single one among the trio of Obasanjo, Yar’adua, and Goodluck Jonathan could find any solution to the quagmire; the current one of Buhari is in dilemma with no means to end the crisis.With ASUU requesting N1.5 trillion as the cumulative money needed to boost the quality of tertiary education in the country.
The ongoing strike is a result of what they have agreed with previous administrations before calling off the previous strike. It can be easily deduced that the cause of the persistent strike can be traced to the funding of our ivory towers across the country.
Truthfully, university education requires large-scale funding to run smoothly but the reverse has been the case in Nigeria due to the acute shortage of funding by the government. It is now clear that government does not have the wherewithal to fulfill its financial obligations to raise the quality of university education which has the bone of contention between the union and the government.
I believe which is in tandem with the majority of people that Quality healthcare, adequate security, and basic education are rights of the citizens, but university education is a privilege, not right. In most advanced countries, they do not have many university graduates because not many people can afford it. Government should focus on quality and affordable basic education for now; especially technical education. The irony of it all is that most students in our universities now, need not be there. They are supposed to be in technical colleges or information technology institutes.
It will be a wise move by the government to handoff from tertiary education and focus more on basic education. A legitimate question now should be what is next for those who cannot afford a university education? It is the burden of the government to work with private financial organizations to give education loans which is the practice in the developed countries.
It is high time we stop fooling ourselves, Obasanjo, Yar’Adua, and Jonathan have left. Buhari too will leave, another person will come and go but the unfortunate thing is that we keep recycling this hypocrisy of wanting to eat our cake and have it. Since the government can not sustain university education on the scale that it should be, especially when people still think paying less than 100 dollars per semester is okay, the best option is for the government to handoff.
How about selling all Federal Universities? We sold telecom, look how good it became. Hence,Government should focus on Primary and secondary education.
