It is a common saying that Education is the magic portion that liberates an individual from physical and mental slavery while the University is considered the brain box of a nation. Casual as this statements may appear, they are nonetheless deeply rooted in the prime of place and prominence attached to Education. Education remains a priority of priorities, be it formal, informal, or non-formal. Destroying any nation is very simple; it does not require the use of atomic bombs or the employment of the kind of bombs and missiles that Russia has been raining on Ukraine in the past fortnight. It only requires lowering the quality of education and erasing moral consciousness by constant disruption of academic calendar through incessant ASUU strikes, encouraging examinations malpractices propagated by students, teachers, supervisors, school heads, or examination officials, through; impersonation, conspiracy, cheating, deliberate plagiarism, money, and sex for grades, etc.
Students from such afflicted educational system will eventually graduate without sufficiently acquiring the intended skills, knowledge, and attitude. They cannot in all honesty be declared to have been “found worthy both in learning and in character” to be admitted into a University degree in their supposed academic discipline. Indeed, watering down meritocracy leads to the discouragement of students from hard work, low productivity, poor job performances, professional inefficiency, bribery and corruption, etc. Most of such students will still manipulate their way through to gain jobs without merit. The implication of this state of affairs on a nation could be ominous since “the collapse of the educational standard is the collapse of a nation.”
It is not rocket science for one to come to the realization of the fact that the quality of education and student performance is negatively influenced by incessant ASUU strike such that increase in the frequency of ASUU strike is directly related to decrease in student performance in Nigerian Universities. It will not be out of place for one to conclude that incessant strike actions by ASUU culminates into the erosion of academic quality, robbing off academic time from school administrators and upon resuming from a strike, academic work is bound to the rushed.
At the end of the last round of meetings between the Federal Government and ASUU, the Federal Government in a statement insists that it has met all of the demands of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) even as the union has extended its warning strike by another 2 months. The position of the Federal Government was made known by the Minister of State for Education, Mr Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba, while reacting to the declaration of the rollover of the strike by the lecturers’ union during an interview with journalists at the end of the commemoration of the 2022 Commonwealth Celebration in Abuja on Monday 14th March, 2022.
Nwajiuba, who insisted that the Federal Government had met all of the demands of the union, added that all earned allowances, as well as revitalization funds, had been released. He said, “ASUU announced that we met and everything that they have demanded, we have done all of them including the earned allowances and the revitalization fund; yet they choose to extend the strike for two months may be.’’
Osodeke said that NEC noted that the union’s leadership had held some interactive meetings with agents of Government in the last four weeks that the strike had lasted, yet no meaningful result was achieved on both sides.
While the face-off between the Federal Government and ASUU lasts, with none of the pugilists ready to blink or back off; our children are condemned to waste yet another three precious months and even more at home idling about. While children of those in government and others who can afford the fees are dutifully engaged in their academic pursuit abroad or in Private Universities within the country, children of John Doe -the unknown masses are left to their fate. Will the long suffering masses ever be factored-in in the planning and thinking process of the ruling class in Nigeria? Our people say that when two elephants fight, the grass suffers. Those who are grossly affected by this needless show of power by both fighters are the masses. ASUU has a very good case, but it came at a wrong time when the economy is gasping for breathe. The foundation of western civilization is hinged on the education sector, but this sector in Nigeria has suffered irredeemably from both neglect on the part of government and lack of zeal on the part of those whose responsibility is to impart knowledge. The Federal government and ASUU should swallow their phlegm and sheath their sword. They should go back to the negotiation table to avoid heating up the polity that may snowball into a dangerous precipice.
