Time to end the ASUU strike

Once again, negotiation between the federal government and ASUU went nowhere last week. Matters have gone from bad to worse. Last week’s meeting was to consider a new ASUU demand that its members be paid for the five months during which they were and are on strike – and they would call off the strike.

At a press briefing on August 18, the minister of education, Adamu Adamu, said government rejected that demand. The teachers will not be paid because the labour law says no work, no pay. Each side has taken an implacable position. For the teachers, it is no pay, no work; for the government, it is no work, no pay. 

It should worry parents and guardians. For more than five months, these two elephants have been fighting and trampling the future of our children underfoot. If they do not settle, our children and wards remain idle at home and face the troubling prospects of being potential recruits by criminals. 

I have written a zillion columns on the current state of our education and on the ASUU strike. Well, no a zillion but you do get the drift of this. I offer no apologies for returning to it once more because I know that if the teachers and the government remain entrenched in their implacable positions, the future of our children becomes as uncertain as the future of our dear country. In a modern, knowledge-driven world, knowledge is power. Knowledge is imparted by teachers in formal educational institutions. A nation that refuses to commit itself to the full and proper education of its young ones inflicts on itself and its citizens incalculable damages. 

It bears repeating that at a retreat by the Federal Ministry of Education in November 2017, President Buhari put his fingers on this when he said that to get our development right, we must get our educational system right. He has established more public tertiary institutions and similarly approved more private universities than all his predecessors combined, in a genuine attempt, I believe, to get our education right. It must come as a huge irony to him that under his watch, higher education in the country is in the doldrums because of the serial breaches by federal government of its agreements with ASUU. 

His approach to getting education right is to build more universities. This in itself has made no impact on our educational system and its development. A large number of universities does not translate into a better university education. University buildings, no matter how beautiful they may be, do not good university education make. Educational funding remains as paltry as it has ever been, well below the 28 per cent of a country’s annual budget stipulated by the UNESCO. We are still below ten per cent. 

Today, our educational system is polarised into the rich and the poor. Private universities are for the rich. And they are for the children of the rich. Their teachers are not ASUU members and therefore, do not go on strike on the say-so of ASUU. 

Public universities are for the poor. They are poorly equipped, poorly funded and poorly staffed. When ASUU goes on strike, everything stops for the children of the poor who are their students. 

This polarised system of education cannot but haunt the future development of this country. It is not difficult to see that the children of the poor get poor education and the children of the rich get superior education. The public universities are in danger of becoming degree mills with their students who supposedly made good grades being seen as ignorant and uneducated in the real world where it matters most.

More disturbingly we are building our great post-primary and tertiary institutions on the weak foundation of public primary schools. Adamu pointed to this in his remarks at the press briefing. In many states in the northern parts of the country, children still study either under trees or in dilapidated classrooms; teachers are not paid or paid regularly and many of them are anything but committed to their job. Hungry teachers do not make good teachers. Again, the children of the poor bear the burden of half education. 

It is too late for Buhari to turn things around. But it is not too late for him to settle with ASUU so their members can return to work. It will not pay for the government to choose to be legalistic about this. Some degree of flexibility is always advisable in a matter of this nature. The onus in resolving the crisis rests with the federal and state governments, the owners of the public universities. There is room in all negotiations for the spirit of give-and-take. Implacable positions or the resort to legalistic posturing is inimical to negotiations. 

The strike has gone on for too long. The federal government must find the will to settle with the teachers and end it without further delay. Enough damage has already been done to the public universities and their students. To let this continue is a disservice to the nation itself. Cynical aloofness will take the nation nowhere we would wish our country to be. 

Let both sides move to the centre. Compromise is no sign of weakness. It is at the root of all negotiated settlements. Each side must be prepared to give up something to gain something. Teachers must give and take. The government must also give and take. The continued strike by ASUU is not option; nor is the no work, no pay an option because in each case the alternative is detrimental to the health of our educational as well as national development.