NEEDS c’ttee report: Varsity non-teaching staff threaten strike

For almost six months, public universities were shut down following an industrial action embarked upon by the academic staff seeking full implementation of the 2009 agreement reached between their union and the federal government. But no sooner than ASUU called off its strike that the lecturers’ non-academic colleagues issued a threat that they would also […]

For almost six months, public universities were shut down following an industrial action embarked upon by the academic staff seeking full implementation of the 2009 agreement reached between their union and the federal government.
But no sooner than ASUU called off its strike that the lecturers’ non-academic colleagues issued a threat that they would also shut down universities by embarking on strike.
 The issue in dispute is the report of the Professor  Mahmoud Yakubu-led NEEDS assessment committtee which assessed the needs of Nigerian public universities.
The report upon which the federal government reached an agreement with ASUU before calling off its strike, according to the non-teaching staff, is biased.
Prior to the constitution of the committee in 2012, the non-teaching staff had kicked against its composition, saying non-teaching staff were not represented on it.
 It was gathered that the non-academic/administrative support staff through their association wrote a protest letter to the federal government through the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (OSGF) rejecting the committee assessing the needs of Nigerian universities without non-teaching staff represented on it, with ASUU president as member.
Following the submission of the committee’s report, the non-teaching staff comprising three unions – Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) which is the main body; the Non-Academic Staff Union of Universities and other allied institutions (NASU) and the Nigerian Association of Academic Technocrats (NAAT) – challenged some of the committee’s recommendations and cautioned government against full implementation of the report.
Recently, members of SSANU in the Western Zone converged on University of Ilorin to dissect the NEEDS assessment report and present an analysis on it to enable the public know how it affects the non-teaching staff in universities.
The gathering which was in form of a public lecture, drew non-teaching staff from many universities in the Western zone. According to the National Vice-President of SSANU and Chairman, Western Zone of the association, Comrade Alfred Jimoh, the lecture “serves as part of the responses of the non-teaching staff to the half truth/utter falsehood being celebrated and glorified as the best thing that has ever happened to the Nigerian public universities in the name of Needs Assessment Report.”
Specifically, the non-teaching staff are kicking against the recommendation of the committee as contained in the report regarding the downsizing of non-academics.
The General Secretary of SSANU, Western Zone, Comrade AbdulSobur Salam, who delivered a lecture which analyzed the committee’s report said the objective was “not to disrespect or discredit any individual or group but to clarify issues raised, put matters straight, redefine a direction for the Nigerian university system and bring to light facts of the matter from the point of view of SSANU.”
He said the report presented by the committee raised many contentious issues among which is the recommendation of one Senior Administrative Staff to 12 academic staff; one technical staff to 20 academic staff.
According to him, the committee further recommended that universities should cease employing administrative junior staff.
The committee as quoted by the SSANU executive, noted also that: “There are numerically more support staff in the services of the universities than the teaching staff they are meant to support, a scenario in which the tail is wagging the dog. There are 77, 511 non-teaching staff in Nigeria’s public universities. This number is made up of senior technical and junior administrative as well as technical staff. This is twice the number of teaching staff across all universities.
In most of the universities, there are more non-teaching staff than teaching staff. In some universities, the number of non-teaching staff doubles, triples, quadruples that of teaching staff…”  The committee also noted that in line with international best practices, “Junior, administrative, secretariat staff are either outsourced or employed on part-time basis.”
The committee recommended, among others that, “For Nigerian universities to be effectively managed, unnecessary personnel cost incurred from over bloated non-teaching staff numbers need to be addressed; that “The limited budgetary allocation to universities must be developed frugally for optimal results. Consequently, it is recommended that government should place an immediate embargo on the recruitment on non-teaching staff in all Nigerian universities for the next five years.”
But Salam disputed the committee’s claim on international best practices, saying extensive research conducted on universities in the United Kingdom, United States of America and Canada showed that non-teaching staff not only double the academic staff but tripled them in some cases.
“According to the information obtained from the United Kingdom Higher Education Statistics Agency Report, there was a total of 346,305 staff in the United Kingdom higher institutions in the 2004/2005 academic session made up of 160,655 academic staff and 185, 650 non-teaching staff. In 2005/2006, the figure rose to 355,415 made up of 164,875 academic and 190,535 non-teaching. At the end of the 2011/2012 academic session, there was a total of 378,250 staff comprising 181, 385 academic and 196,860 non-teaching staff.”
Other universities he mentioned were Stanford University, California with 12,974 staff, made up of 1,995 academic staff and 10,979 administrative non-teaching staff; John Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland which has 18,100 staff comprising 3,100 academic and 15, 000 administrative staff; Harvard University, Cambridge Massachusetts with an academic population of 2,100 and Administrative of 2,500 (non-medical) and 11,000 (medical) staff.
The Western zone SSANU secretary noted that over 70 per cent of salaries of Nigerian universities are spent on the academic staff, saying sacking the non-teaching staff “may not fundamentally address the problem of salaries and wages” since the bulk of the salaries is expended on the academic staff.
He therefore called on the federal government to jettison the report which he said, was skewed in favour of the academic staff, cautioning that the non-teaching staff would be forced to down tools should government go ahead with implementing the report.
He said: “We, the members of the non-teaching staff unions…reject all the contents and derivatives of the committee’s report in totality”, adding that the NEEDS committee report demonstrated disdain for the non-teaching staff.
“For there to be a proper repositioning of the Nigerian public university system, the NEEDS committee report, must of necessity, be discarded by the federal government and must not be reckoned with,” he added.
Also, Comrade Jimoh warned that the unemployment rate would rise if the president “is deceived into laying off the non-teaching staff” as recommended by the committee, adding that the committee which has representatives of the academic staff as members “could not have done anything better than to exhibit their age-long disdain for the non-teaching staff in the system.”
He noted that the association had questioned the composition of the committee which did not include any of its representatives,  explaining that though the association was not averse to funding of infrastructure in the universities, the section of the report that advocated downsizing of non-teaching staff should be discarded.
 “We are not saying government should not fund the university system and we also believe that rather than downsizing the non-teaching staff, it is the social responsibility of government to provide employment,” he said.