Yet another ASUU strike
Members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) started a seven-day warning strike from Wednesday last week to press home their demands from the government. Although the union claimed this is a warning strike, its impact has paralysed academic and other activities across the nation’s universities. The strike action was launched after several meetings […]
Members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) started a seven-day warning strike from Wednesday last week to press home their demands from the government. Although the union claimed this is a warning strike, its impact has paralysed academic and other activities across the nation’s universities. The strike action was launched after several meetings between the union and government failed to resolve the plethora of issues raised by the former, most of which are long standing areas of friction between the parties.
According to ASUU’s new President Professor Biodun Ogunyemi, the issues bothering his union are many but eight of them are crucial. One of these is government’s failure to honour a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) it reached with the union in 2013 in respect of adequate funding for the revitalisation of public universities in the country. Although that MOU was signed under the past administration of President Goodluck Jonathan, ASUU considers it to be binding on the present administration since government is a continuum. Besides, since the issue was captured in this year’s budget ASUU finds it inexcusable for government not to implement same.
Other demands include the non-release of subventions by state governments to state universities, the establishment of separate pension scheme for academic staff of universities, payment of all outstanding allowances, elimination of shortfall in salary payments, payment of salaries of university staff school teachers, exemption of universities from the Treasury Single Account (TSA) system and renegotiation of ASUU’s 2009 agreement with the government.
Seen in perspective, much of these claims by ASUU are matters which should have been resolved long ago if the government was disposed to honour agreements, while other matters are actually beyond resolution by the education authorities alone. For instance, part of the agreement on adequate funding for universities was partially implemented by the Jonathan administration following the 2013 agreement. N200 billion was released to all the universities to improve teaching infrastructure which was handled by a special implementation committee. Since then however, the promised annual release of this amount has not materialised and government is financially hard up this year.
However, an area like a separate pension scheme for ASUU members is clearly beyond the brief of the education authorities to resolve without recourse to other stakeholders in the polity. So also is the issue of paying salaries of staff of university-owned primary and secondary schools. It is unreasonable to sneak primary education into the Federal Government’s payroll when it is the duty of lower tiers of government. Also problematic is the demand for exemption of universities from the TSA scheme. While TSA has noble objectives, its implementation has posed problems across the board, not just for universities.
Anytime there is a face-off between ASUU and government, there is a dislocation of career plans and other problems which each strike action by university lecturers imposes on the nation’s aspirations for quality education for the citizenry. That is why we urge both parties to seek an early and sustainable resolution of the outstanding issues in order for the country to move forward. While the present administration may have good plans for education in the country, it is difficult to see how such will come to fruition if the tertiary sector is not fixed and is disposed to periodic dislocations from strikes by unions like ASUU.
In the same vein, we urge ASUU to consider the wider impact of its incessant strike actions on the country. Students, parents and the lecturers themselves all suffer from frequent and prolonged strikes. It worsens the country’s lot because most parents cite ASUU strikes as the reason they send their children to school abroad. We urge ASUU not to go back to its old ways of going on strike nearly every year. We also urge the Federal Government to move fast and resolve the outstanding issues through sincere and open minded negotiations.