National President, Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi, has said that it is not a crime for lecturers to teach in two different universities.
Ogunyemi, who said this when he appeared on News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Forum in Abuja yesterday, said that the diversity usually offered the opportunity of comparing standards.
He said that teaching in two universities would only add to the system as it would afford the opportunity for lecturers to borrow and learn ideas from each other.
“The university systems allow for what we call Sabbatical. It is part of university tradition and practices all over the world.
“The purpose that it serves is that you create window for peer review. In other words, what you are doing in university A, you go to university B and see whether that is what obtains exactly, or you need to borrow something, or you share some ideas.
“ Sabbatical is a mechanism for assuring comparability of standards. Anybody that goes out for sabbaticals, when he or she comes back to the university, he adds value to the system.
“You are bringing something back, no matter how little, to the system. Where you have gone too, they get something from you.
“ So, we encourage that from time to time in the university system because universities are regarded as universal places of learning and research,” he said.
Ogunyemi also explained that lecturers, who embarked on Sabbaticals, are being paid by both their original employers and the benefiting institution.
According to him, before you go on Sabbatical, you must write a proposal on what you want to do for that year; when you come back, you must present the result of what you have done.
“It is like a research/teaching leave; you also go to another place within Nigeria or outside Nigeria to acquire new information, knowledge and bring back the knowledge to add value to your work place.
“So, it is part of the inbuilt mechanism for developing the competencies and skills of the university academics for global competition. So, working in more than one place is not a crime.
“It is not something that is now being debated whether it is moral or immoral, because they are trying to read some moral script into it,’’ he said.