ASUU’s Protracted Strike And The Burden Of 2009 Agreement...

LEADERSHIP NEWSPAPER With what seemed to have started like a joke, the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU strike has reached its fourth month and still counting, with no possibilities of end in sight, until the bone of contention, the 2009 agreement is reached. With the modalities so far put in place by the federal government, can it be said that progress has been made so far? KUNI TYESSI takes a look.
Some days ago, the Senate president, David Mark, had a meeting with the leaders of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU and he stated that his aim was to discuss with the group and find ways that will lead to the end of face-off. From the National Assembly, the union moved to the villa on the invitation of President Goodluck Jonathan.
Nigerians expected that at the end of the meeting with the nation’s first citizen, the union will call off the strike, whether or not the 2009 agreement was reached. But from the look of things, the union means business and is willing to hold public university education to ransom until the signed deal is respected.
At this juncture, it will be important to take Nigerians down memory lane and remind them that the two teams which comprised of the federal government and ASUU had affirmed that they had the mandate of their respective principals to re-negotiate the agreement. The issues for re-negotiation included conditions of service, funding, university autonomy and academic freedom among others.
The agreement was directed towards ensuring that there is a viable university system rather than a multiple set of academic standards, and where it was recognised by the negotiating teams that education is on the concurrent list and by this agreement, the federal government did not intend to and was not expected to compel to compel the state governments to implement the provisions of the agreement in respect of their universities.
It was however recognised that the state governments shall be encouraged to adopt the agreement as a bench mark, if they are to operate within the goals of achieving thesame sets of academic standards for their institutions within Nigeria’s university system.
The major source of funding education is through budgetary allocation from state and federal governments and with this in view, the re-negotiation committee agreed to recommend to relevant authorities that: a minimum of 26% of the annual budget of the federal and state governments be allocated to education; at least 50% of the budgeted allocation shall be given to the universities and representation of the federal ministry of education to the revenue mobilisation and fiscal commission to put education on the first charge be vigorously pursued.
It was also agreed that the federal government shall endeavour to progressively increase its budgetary allocation to the education sector in accordance with its vision 20:2020 programme.
Other sources of funding agreed upon include cost-saving measures, duty-free importation of educational materials by universities, setting up research units by companies operating in Nigeria, budget monitoring committee, university post-doctoral fellowship, provision for teaching and research equipment as well as national research fund.
It was agreed that the following be implemented immediately as priorities: setting up of an implementation monitoring committee to monitor the implementation of the agreement, commencement of procedures for amendment of laws in respect of those aspects of the agreement and the release of funds to meet the obligations of government as appropriate in the agreement.
The re-negotiating committee acknowledged the need for Nigerian universities to make more effort to increase their contributions to funding through IGR without compromising the goals and integrity of the institutions. Until then, government funding was expected to be the backbone of university funding, through budgetary and non-budgetary sources.
While universities needed rehabilitation and restoration funds, ETF, now TETFund, financed the building of gates, sport centres, some classrooms, hostels and sponsored conferences on themes having nothing to do with teaching and research.
It was also agreed that “Nobody shall be victimised in any way whatsoever for his/her role in the process leading to this re-negotiation and agreement” and it was signed on 21st of October, 2009 by Dr B O Babalakin who was chairman, committee of pro-chancellors of the federal universities and pro-chancellor, University of Maiduguri, Prof Ukachukwu Awuzie, past president of ASUU , for and on behalf of ASUU and Deacon Gamaliel Onosode, chairman, FGN/ASUU re-negotiation committee and pro-chancellor, University of Lagos.
With this in mind, the fingers of Nigerians are crossed with great expectations which is not far from the obvious.
So far, after a 13 hours meeting at the villa which ended in the early hours of Tuesday, the national president of the union, Dr Nasir Isa Fagge, told newsmen that the union will get back to its members and discuss with them the stand of the government. However, he said the meeting ended on a positive note. Nigerians are however waiting to know the outcome which hopefully will culminate to the call off.