Let’s End ASUU By Taking Some Bold Steps

First, I need to say that I don’t believe everyone should get university education, because it’s not a barrier to success in life or to the greatness of a country. By 1940, before the second world war, less than 5% of adults 25 and over reported they’d earned a bachelor’s degree or higher in the United States of America. Yet, the US had by then become a world power with the highest GDP per capital in the world.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s most recent data, only about 94 million Americans aged 25 and over had a graduate or professional degree. This is just about 42 percent of the population of the country, which is now about 329.5 million. However, nearly 9 in 10 (90 percent) of all adults 25 years or older had completed at least high school, or equivalent

In the UK, the situation is not different. The percentage of people who had undergone accredited higher education course, from two-year foundation degrees to PhDs was 49% by 2021, according to the BIS on the Higher Education Initial Participation Rate (HEIPR).

So, it’s not illogical to argue that university education is not what makes a country great. While education, including university education, is good for social progress, it’s the productive capacity of a country’s population that makes it great. No one needs a university degree to be productive. Countries in Asia, such as China, are already showing that.

Nigeria, with an estimated population of 200 million, has 170 universities—federal, state and private. There are 43 federal, 48 state and 79 private universities in the country. The federal government has the least number of universities but they are the largest in terms of number of faculties, students and academic staff. A 2019 data quoted by statista.com shows that federal universities have a total of 7,000 professors, 3,400 readers, 29, 000 senior lecturers and below.

Private universities, which are more in number, have a combine academic staff strength of 1,715 professors, 85 readers, 2, 863 senior lecturers and 6,653 lecturer 1 and below. The state universities also employed more academic staff than the private universities. They have 3,033 professors, 1,808 readers, 4,283 senior lecturers and 12,450 lecturer 1 and below.

Since 2009, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) had embarked on strike at least 8 times, due largely to the refusal or inability of the FG to meet its demands. The agreement signed in 2009 has been the reason for all subsequent strikes by the union, including the on-going six months long industrial action. ASUU is demanding about N1.3trillion Universities Revitalization Fund before it would return to the classroom.

There now appears to be a deadlock in the negotiation going by the disclosure of Festus Keyamo, Minister of State for Labour, during an appearance on television last week. He said the government would not be forced into borrowing money to satisfy ASUU.

There is no tangible reason why the federal government, whose purse is getting leaner and leaner, should continue to shoulder the responsibilities of these universities. It’s my firm belief that the ASUU problem, or put more appropriately, the problem of tertiary education in the country, would continue unless the federal government hands off the affairs of tertiary institutions.

All federal tertiary institutions should be sold to states who want them or privatized. The federal government should not be running universities or funding them because it’s a wrong model which was borne out of the unitary governance system foisted on the nation by the Military.

In the United States, whose model of democracy we admire, most of the public tertiary institutions belong to states, and only a small number of public institutions are directly funded and governed by the U.S. federal government. And these are mostly military related institutions.

The vast majority of universities in the UK are funded by a combination of central government funding, and tuition fees charged to students (or their sponsors). But students typically pay a higher portion of the cost of the learning through their tuition fees, with the government making up the difference.

However, in reality, the majority of students fund their studies using a government-backed loan, which they repay through the tax system once they have finished their course and are earning a certain amount per year.

For long term sustainability, universities need to meet the full economic cost of teaching potential, including staff, services and resources. It must also allow for costs for replacing infrastructure and reinvesting in future innovation to meet students and employee requirements. Universities need good funding which the Nigerian government cannot afford.

Most employers in the country would tell you how unemployable most of the graduates coming out of the Nigerian universities, especially public ones, are. It is certainly not the fault of the graduates that majority of them are half-baked. It is the fault of the system which had consistently failed to provide the right education for the students.

Public universities in the UK and the US are among the best in the world. It used to be like that in Nigeria in the past when there were fewer universities controlled by the federal government. Universities then, 60s-80s, were well funded and the products could compete with their peers across the world. So, its obvious that the universities are suffering because more of them are now sharing what a handful of them were sharing in the previous decades.

If the government cannot hand over the universities to states or the private sector, then it is time to give them full autonomy to run their affairs. Government should no longer directly fund tertiary institutions; the institutions should devise their own income streams. If they need to increase fees for tuition and others, they should have the freedom to do so.

The government can support education through grants to the institutions and loan to students. Instead of the millions or trillions of Naira being wasted on so-called social intervention funds, poor families would be better off if their children have government loan to attend school and go through universities.

Graduates who passed through the university with government loan should benefit from loans given to Small and Medium Size Enterprises. They would be required to repay the total loan they’ve collected from the government from their businesses.

The advantage of this kind of arrangement, in my opinion, is that it would improve quality of teaching and research in the tertiary institutions, and encourages entrepreneurship among graduates. Anyone who has collected a government loan to acquire a degree knows they have to repay. Thus, there’s strong motivation in the graduates to create jobs and become entrepreneurs.

Unless we do this, no administration would be able to solve the ASUU problem.

– Tajudeen Suleiman is an Abuja-based journalist.

Disclaimer: This article is entirely the opinion of the writer and does not represent the views of The Whistler.