Lagos — For Chika Ikeh, 20, academic progress has been delayed by at least two years. By now, she should be in her second year at the University of Ibadan (UI), in southwest Nigeria. She gained admission into UI to study social sciences---with either economics or sociology as a major. But she may never enter into that institution, at least not on the basis of the two-year-old admission.
"I feel very bad," she says. She had planned to go on to another course after graduation, and finally take a professional qualification in accounting. "Now I do not know how possible that will be, with all the delay," she bemoaned.
Chika's enrollment was postponed by a series of strikes by university teachers that distorted the institutions academic year. Consequently, university authorities had to cancel admissions for one whole year in an effort to normalise the academic calendar. Chika is one of the potential entrants who have been on the queue, waiting to reach the top of the waiting list and get her turn.
University of Ibadan is not alone in this confusion. Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU - formely theUniversity of Ife) has the same problem. To rectify it, the university planned to shorten the current academic year by ending it this month two months ahead of schedule. Thereafter, the institution would be on an extended vacation, to resume functioning in September. The aim, according to the authorities, is to realign the schools academic year with the rest of the academic community, where the school year runs from September to the following June.
Now however, authorities of the OAU do not have to take measures to end the academic year this month. Already, the university, along with others in the country, is on forced holiday, as faculty, under the umbrella of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, began yet another round of strike early this month.
The tradition of strikes that produced distortions in universities calendars began during the era of military dictatorship in Nigeria. During that period, universities had running battles with the military authorities, who most of the time saw both lecturers and students as enemies. Now, Nigeria is a democracy. But Dr. Lai Olurode, a lecturer at the University of Lagos (Unilag) here, says the "social forces" that trigger these reactions (strikes) are still at work.
"Strikes have become a feature of Nigerian educational system because nothing has changed in terms of the characteristics of the Nigerian society," he says. "Despite the change from military to democracy, the internal workings are still the same."
The strikes, says Olurode, represent the teachers response to the disdain with which successive governments in Nigeria have held the educational sector. Government, he says, "is not ready to give education the respect it deserves."
Denied of adequate funding, education has become an orphan among its peers---the other sectors that command large chunks of governments spending each year. Nigeria is a signatory to United Nations and UNESCO conventions that request member nations to commit each year at least 26 percent of their resources to education. But governments vote for the educational sector has ranged between 7-10 percent, notes Dr Yomj Akinyeye, local Chairman of ASUU at Unilag. This year, governments vote for education is 7 percent, he notes.
The consequences are many, according to the teachers. "The result is that staff are not motivated," says Akinyeye. "You can see I have no computer, and yet I am supposed to keep abreast of developments in my field," said the teacher of Diplomatic History and Strategic Studies.
Staff emolument is low, Olurode notes, although it is better now than three or four years ago. A lecturer with a Ph.D. will require between 10-15 years (depending on ones academic potential) to attain the status of a Senior Lecturer, who currently receives a monthly salary of between 60-70,000 naira. Taking the upper limit, this translates into a total of 840,000 naira per annum. At the current official exchange of 115.7 naira to a dollar, the wage would be about $7,260 a year. At the unofficial foreign exchange market where the rate is now as high as 140 to the dollar, the equivalent is much less.
"You can see its difficult to build a house with that kind of salary," says Olurode. In Nigeria, housing construction is owner-financed. "Even your children cannot attend good schools unless they are subsidized."
Poor funding of education has also taken a toll on the quality of teaching and research in Nigerian universities. Exchange programs between local universities and their counterparts elsewhere are gone, says Olurode, "because they cannot function under the current environment." There are no provisions for Research Assistants to teachers, and research grants themselves are gone.
In this first year of the 21st century, many departments in many Nigerian universities have no computers. Unlike Akinyeye, Olurode has a computer in his office. But he says he got it from "my sweat." He has also acquired an email account"not long ago." He cannot connect to the web from his office. "To exchange ideas with your colleagues or know what they are doing is difficult," he laments.
Nigerian universities are so backward in information technology that many students graduate without seeing a computer. Even those who study computer science have minimal contact with the equipment of their field. "Its a sorry case. In spite of efforts by ASUU, we dont seem to be part of the 21st century," say Akiyeye.
He argues that strikes are intended to draw attention to the rot in Nigerias educational system and reverse the drift. "If ASUU does not make this point," Akiyeye says, "posterity will not forgive us that we allowed the the system to collapse." He says ASUU is fighting to "restore our university system to its former glory."
The path to that restoration, according to ASUUs demands, includes enhancement of emoluments, provision for research assistants and grants, and enhancement of retirement benefits. As a result of the poor conditions of service in Nigerian universities, many teachers have left the country, often going into Europe, North America and Southern Africa. To stem this brain drain, ASUU last August negotiated with the government to pay the group's members the same average salary paid to those who teach in Southern Africa.
"This was agreed upon by both sides," says Akinyeye. He further says both sides agreed to implement the plan in three phases: 27 percent in the first stage, 33 percent in the second stage, and the balance in the final stage. But he accuses the Minister of Education, Prof.Babalola Aboorishade, of neglecting the accord. "Rather than address this, the minister has not bothered to acquaint himself with the agreement."
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Aborishade had said, three days prior to the commencement of the current strike, that the total amount required to meet ASUUs demand was 153.8 billion naira (about $1.33 billion, at 115.7 naira to a dollar, the official exchange rate). "A supplementary budget twice the size of the original education vote for the year 2001 will be needed" to cover this amount, according to the minister, as he urged ASUU to avert the strike.
To sign the agreement reached between ASUU and the government would be "recipe for fresh crisis in the universities," since its implementation would be impossible, as this years budget has already been passed, according to Aborishade, who was appointed minister last January, replacing the former minister.
Despite Aborishades concerns about the size of the amount involved, Olurode says the demand is justified. "Within the context of Nigerias resource base and what other sectors are getting from the state, what the lecturers are asking for is not outrageous," he insists. "The amount is not beyond the powers of the state," but the reluctance to pay it, he says, derives from "their attitude to education."
Aborishade appealed to the teachers to consider the plight of students who have suffered the brunt of the strikes. The teachers, on their part, say they are fighting the cause for students, whose future the government is toying with.
This has left the students in a lurch. For many of them like Chika, who is acutely aware of her predicament, the future has become a moving point, constantly drifting farther from their grasp.
