Opinion
ASUU, FG: Who Is Fooling Who? (II)
Ikegbu Emmanuel
ASUU had made all efforts to get well meaning citizens to understand their plight. They were present at a Joint National Assembly Committee of Higher Education in 2002 to project their demand for autonomy, which was passed into an Act in June 2003 and was signed by President Obasanjo as the University Miscellaneous Act on July 10, 2003.
But since after then, this law was not implemented. Several other demands have since crept in. As they were not also met, ASUU went on strikes.
For instance, Imo State University Owerri, had only 11 weeks lectures but 12 weeks just within the first semester of 2008/09 session and is yet to conclude exams for some departments. This is outside the July – August ASUU strike.
Smaller countries such as Bostwana, Lesotho, Togo, Ghana, and Gambia, among the lots, whose GNPs are not up to half of Nigeria’s, have better education system. But, Academic unions of Ghana and Benin had to go on long strikes before their education sector got better funding.
Perhaps, the important point is that their governments were people friendly. They took education as a top priority and accorded it 26 per cent – 42 per cent of their annual budgets. University education got a greater share of the education budgets.
The ASUU –FG saga has lingered for long. About three years ago, the Federal Government entered into a fresh agreement with the union. They were never implemented.
President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua was ushered into power with ASUU’s six months old strike. Every effort was made to pacify the Union’s National Executive Committee with much lobby, the strike was kept in abeyance.
Soon after then, the demands of ASUU were not met as industrial actions continued. But the Minister of Information, Prof Dora Akunyili, after the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting of July 1, 2009, authoritatively informed newsmen of government’s moves concerning resolving the impasse, stating that “they wanted increased funding, that we have granted; they wanted autonomy, that we have granted; they wanted retirement at 70, that we have also granted; they also want 109 per cent increase in salaries, that we are negotiating. As I speak to you, the Minister of Education, Dr Sam Egwu, is with Mr President discussing this issue. Government is not folding her hands. Government would not fold her arms and watch our university students sit at home,” she assured.
The FG feels that the demands of ASUU are much though they are doing their best, as it believes but the picture from ASUU shows the reverse. They want the government to sign the agreement reached a few years ago.
ASUU is disappointed that months after negotiations, with research based forward looking, condition of service, autonomy of universities, increase funding, and education tax should be harmonised. The union sees the FG’s attitude as “provocative action.”
ASUU argues that an agreement was reached for federal and state governments to devote 26 per cent of its annual budget to education.
The implementation of the constitutional provisions that the government should appropriate funds to assist the states in the area of higher education.
While the tortoise and monkey continues to display their sagacity and dexterity, we must not forget that it is the grass that suffers when two elephants fight. Our students have been suffering the muscle flexing.
Permit me to also ask ASUU, how sincere have our lecturers been? Research grants have been converted to allowances, given some lecturers untamed access to influence. Some earn more than their income. The issue of exploiting innocent students cannot be swept under the carpet.
The rate and manner in which students are exploited by lecturers is pitiable. The former ASUU Boss at Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike, lamented that some lecturers sentimentally defend their colleagues caught in corrupt acts.
But for the fact that students stay idle at home, the option would have been for the government to squeeze and flush out the rotten eggs in the system. The Judas is denting the image of the eleven.
Nevertheless, the government should be sincere with ASUU even as Nigerians want both parties to always go to the negotiating table. We are privileged that President Yar’Adua, Vice President Goodluck Jonathan, and the Minister of Education, Dr Sam Egwu, who are key players in this matter were all once in the lecture hall. They have worn the shoes. They should know where it pinches.
Let no one fool anyone. Vision 20 – 2020 enshrined in the seven-point agenda awaits us. ASUU, FG, is anyone fooling the other?
Emmanuel is a Student of Imo State University (IMSU) Owerri.
Quote:”Communities have rights to peace, safety, and quality of life. Noise pollution, crowds, or other impacts from religious activities can affect these rights. Balancing these interests requires consideration and dialogue”.
“All work and no play”, its said, “makes Jack a dull boy.” Despite this age-long maxim that recognises the role of play in early childhood development, play appears to be eluding many Nigerian kids. The deprivation of play opportunities comes in different forms for the Nigerian child depending on family’s social setting or status, but the effect is much the same. For children in Nigerian poor families, life is becoming as much a hassle as it is for their struggling parents. Due to harsh economic conditions, many families resort to engaging their kids prematurely in trading activities especially in hawking, to help boost family revenues, when these kids should be enjoying leisure after school. Some of these children barely attend schools while being forced to spend much of their childhood hustling in the streets. For children from well-off families, time could be as crunchy as it is for their busy parents when, obsessed with setting agenda for the future of their kids, parents arrange stringent educational regiment too early for their kids.
These group of children are made to get-off the bed by 5.30am every weekday, get ready for private school buses that call at 6.00am, otherwise report by however means to school at 7.20am.The situation is worse for kids in the city of Lagos where the need to beat urban traffic rush-hours is very high. Most children are further subjected to extra hours of lessons after school at 2.00pm, only to be released with loads of homework. On many occasions children who leave home for school at 6.30am get back by 3.30pm. With hardly enough time to eat, do school assignments and take afternoon naps, these children hardly had time for plays before dinners. In Nigeria, kids of ages between 3 and 12 spend averages of 9 hours a day and 45 hours a week to and from schools, and additional hours doing home assignments and domestic jobs, whereas their peers in developed countries spend about half that duration and have more time for leisure.
Any remaining spare time left after school work or street hustle is further stolen, when kids who usually are fascinated by gadgets, are exposed to household electronics like phones, tablets and gaming consoles. Electronic games may create a sense of leisure, but the difference with human interactions is that kids doing games interface mostly with machines or with programme structured in ways that entrap a child’s pysch directionally, according to the game’s programming, in ways that may not encourage independent thinking. Moreso, attraction to such gadgets displaces kids’ attention from important television and radio programmes. The prevalent tight, academic schedules for some Nigerian kids, though intended for academic excellence, encroaches on childhood leisure time needed to achieve an all-round childhood development, and could make children to resent formal education altogether. Besides, academic excellence or economic pursuit, is not all there is to living a well-nurtured life.
Children’s leisure time, defined as time left over after sleeping, eating, personal hygiene and attending school or day-care, is very crucial to childhood development. Sociologists recommend that children should have at least 40 per ceny of the day as leisure. According to Berry Brazelton, a former pediatrician at Harvard Medical School, “Play is the most powerful way a child explores the world and learns about him or herself.” Unstructured play encourages independent thinking and allows the young to negotiate their relationships with their peers, and in the process build self-confidence and self-control. Play is one of the important ways in which young children gain essential knowledge and skills. Leisure time enhances learning as fun enables children to learn at their own level and pace. Young children naturally explore and learn many skills by making cognitive connections from events that catch their attention.
Unstructured plays help children developed their cognitive, physical and communication skills that make them acquire social qualities necessary in navigating relationships in adult life. Plays enable children assess how others feel and learn perspectives as well as empathy through observing differences in facial expressions, body language and even tone of voice, which helps them copy how to express themselves to others, and therefore develop socially acceptable behavours that build relationships. In cooperative activities, children willingly take things in turn and may delegate roles. Children can also share the glory of winnings through competitive games, which is all great for working together in task sharing. Aside encouraging parents to ensure adequate leisure time for their kids at home, schools should make plays and exercises an integral part of the educational curriculum. The educational curriculum set by the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC) includes specific training durations and break periods, as well as sporting activities, as part of the school system.
Due to poor government funding, sports in public schools have declined, while most private schools lack sporting infrastructure or even play grounds. These make recreational activities and sports implementation almost impossible in schools. Also, the increasing rate of urbanisation in Nigerian communities is gradually eroding ancient playgrounds, while established urban centres have lost community playgrounds. With tightening apartment spaces now being the norm in most urban residential areas, many kids are forced to wriggle within burglary-proof enclosures. Nigerian governments and the relevant agencies should ensure that existing child labour protection laws, educational and urban development codes are implemented in the country, to enable proper nurturing of children as the future stakeholders of our society. Private schools, especially, should be supervised to ensure they follow the educational curriculum standards set by NERDC.
In a bid to impress parents and draw more patronage as better option than public schools, private schools, most of whom operate in cramped environments, have continued to set high regiments of training schedules beyond the capacity of most kids, and even encourage enrollment of pre-school age kids who can not sit still to listen for an extended periods of time. Schools, from creche to secondary levels, without playgrounds and recreational facilities should not be allowed to operate, and should be made to understand and implement appropriate curriculum and training durations. Many Nigerian kids, whether from rich or poor families, appear to have been set-up inadvertently, in the same leisure denial that affects their parents. All work and no play could lead to some messed-up kids who grow up not understanding social cues, and being unemotional and self-centered, manifest later as obsessive-compulsive adults.
By: Joseph Nwankwo
We thank God who is above all human contrivance and arrogance. Congratulations, Your Excellency Amaopusenibo Sir Siminalayi Joseph Fubara. Your victory takes us back to the Bible as a living document of a God that rules in the affairs of all His creation. In a manner of speaking, welcome back from your first war with Phillistines, Your Excellency! Yes, first example is David and Goliath! And like David, Your Excellency stands over Goliath in victory. But that is not enough. Our real enemy is that Your Excellency is Governor of a State with a wretched economy. Indigenes of Your State are today reduced to battalions of beggars waiting for who will hire their loyalty on the usual “pay-as-you-go” basis.
Your Excellency, it brings us to another Bible- based parallel. Conscientious Rivers indigenes above 50, should identify with and commit our all to this second parallel. It is to liberate the economy and people of Rivers people from 23 years enslavement and poverty, for us to regain our dignity and pride. When the economy of Egypt was drifting into a disaster zone, even Pharaoh did not know it. He also did not know what to do. But God sent a Joseph to build the economy into a fortress of good fortune that overcame the economic and social disaster Egypt did not know was ahead. Your Excellency for 23 years, Rivers State has been ruled without any logical, credible and consistent PLAN of how to overcome mass poverty from our dehydrated local economies.
Your Excellency, Rivers State cannot survive one month without Federal allocation! So called IGR only about 10 per cent of Federal allocation.It is also not based on what we produce but on tax from other people’s productivity that pass through our State. Pharaoh did not know what to do in the case of Egypt. May it please God to position another Joseph in Governor Siminalayi Joseph Fubara to heal Rivers State and build an economy that all Africa will come to access in order to chart a new course out of worsening economic hardship that is caused by near zero investment in productivity and endemic reckless looting. They are the twin chambers nursing a corporate cancer unfolding across Nigeria and Africa. The hard work begins today, Your Excellency.
We need an economic blueprint that will enrich every Rivers senatorial district from investment to grow productivity and to enrich every Rivers person from career-based productive labour, just as Pharaoh was enriched by Joseph’s economic Blueprint. Let Rivers State stop the trend of waiting the lives of young Rivers people recruited by Phillistines into cultism, thuggery and easy money, as a career. These Phillistines believe they have only lost one phase of many legal battles and battles by other means. But from comments in the public media, their eyes are fixed on 4-years of war and more! Your Excellency, we the people will not let you forget what you owe us. We have to make unbelievers see that your leadership is different and that we are uprooting the old order of an unproductive Feudal System. That system makes a few persons and their cronies to monopolise our collective wealth, while the majority are left in misery. Let’s put an end to enslavement by cabals and mass poverty in Rivers State. That is when the Phillistines will surrender.
By: Amaopusenibo Brown