#ReopenLautech:a Nigerian Student laments.
THE CRY OF A NIGERIAN UNIVERSITY STUDENT; THE CHANGE WE DIDNOT BARGAIN FOR.
I find it deep in necessity to scribe my mind and put forward in this piece as necessity beckons that I break my silence as someone as rightly said " those who contribute to the insanity in a society are not just those who witnessed it, but those who keep mute when things incessantly dilapidate" When important issues are not handled urgently they become urgent and degenerate into crisis with collateral damage to the society. I will point out the some of the issues in our educational system in Nigeria, giving an analysis of the paralysis.
Human right are regarded as legal , social or ethical Principles of freedom or other entitlement in the society .Rights are considered fundamental to civilization being regarded as established pillars of every society and culture, so also education plays an integral role in the development of any society .Truth to this established fact, Sadly for us in Nigeria the scenario is a very challenging one, there are different challenges confronting the growth of our educational sector in Nigeria one of them which is the havoc wreck of the quota system imposed on us by the northern oligarchy in their own favor which is frontally causing a structural imbalance in our educational sector, a typical example is the current university admission policy introduced by the federal government ,which needs a very serious attention at the moment . However, government policies so far to the educational sector has been patriotic in the reverse order.
Last year people around the world applaud the victory of the south African students over the attempt to impose a steep rise in registration , tuition and accommodation ranging from 8% to 12%.The student rose up in solidarity under a unified body called Socialist Youth Movement , and campaign for free and democratically manage public education .The #feemustfall protest started as a spontaneous movement from below of angry students who could not tolerate the pro-rich policy of university management and government any longer .
After ten days of Struggle, the African National Congress (ANC), government of Jacob Zuma was forced to agree to 0% fee increase in the year 2016 .Although the demand of the free education remain unachieved yet, concession is no doubt humiliating defeat of a government whose pro-rich policy have contributed to making south Africa one the most unequal countries in the world.
This victory in south Africa should serve as an inspiration to students all across Africa and especially Nigeria, I will like to use Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomosho,Oyo state as a case study where education is gradually being turned to the preserve of the few rich through anti-poor capitalist policies of underfunding and commercialization of education in the University.
No policy be they academic or not has ever served to benefit the basic interest of the students of Ladoke Akintola University of Technology in recent history. The institution’s past is most noteworthy for its ceaseless brutalization of its students. It’s most perilous decline yet however began in the year 2010, during the administration of Gov. Adebayo Alao Akala and Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola of Oyo and Osun state government as the two co-owning states of the institution. The tuition of the institution was increased from #40,000 t0 #150,000 simply because the two states owners states government refuses to perform their civic duty of giving education subvention to the university. in this regard, as the expenditure of the university grows beyond what the internal generated revenue can carter for, the management had to had t resolve to the increment, which led to a massive protest of the student led by the then students’ union president of the institution, com. Adeniji idowu Oluwaseyi also known as I.D Aluta, and was later reduced to #65,000 for indigenes of the two co-owing states and #72,000 for non-indigenes. The threat of tuition fee increment still looms till today, as the school authority increases the acceptance fee of the fresh student from #20,000 to #30,000 and simultaneously with the pre-degree acceptance and tuition fee. To further worsen this condition, the state of security and welfare of the students have declined rapidly since then. Ranging from more than two thousand cases of theft and robbery to cultism and several cases of rape and physical assault. To all this, the reaction of the administration has been far below expectation. Coming down to academic affairs proper, the situation leaves much to be desired. The infrastructure present are either outdated or incapable of catering for the large number of students who are to make use of it. Learning proper takes place in often highly inconvenient conditions with both lecturer and student finding it hard to properly communicate. After examinations, collection of result seem to be a moribund task, with the management with-holding the results under one guise or the other for up to eight months, sometimes.
This is another year when the university is closed down for a clueless reason, SSANU and NASU declared an indefinite strike action, ASUU refuse to go on strike yet for no obvious reason ,a semester is running on six months and still counting , the university id already been closed down for a month and still counting but unfortunate the students union activities has earlier been suspended by the university management.
Following the suspension of the students union activities , due to the post- election violence that sum up after the unions' election , On the 10th of June,2016, we received in our students gmail with huge sadness and shock the closure of University till further notice.
The reasons for the closure of Varsity was stated to be a semester break, but the obvious truth of the closure is actually due to the refusal of ASUU to submit examination questions for examination to commence after all academic lectures and practicals has been rounded up in all departments except for Nursing and Medicine departments owing to the fact that the university management is owing ASUU members huge amount of salary and their earn academic allowance.
Reports from reliable sources has it that for the past years the university management has the running the affairs of the school on the university internal generates revenue due to the fact that the two owner state governments which are Osun and Oyo state had not been funding the university , which led to the increment of the freshers acceptance fee last year, it was also stated that for the past five to six years the two owner state governments have not contributed anything to the development of the institution which is quite obvious as we can see the projects been executed are funded by the hard earned federal government education fund which ASUU fought for some years back.
I however do not want to dwell on rightness or wrongness of ASUU's action and the Managements reaction, but the constant disagreement has had negative effects on students of the institution.
It has become a norm that Lautech is known for unstable Calendar, we go on strike almost every session based on the slightest disagreement, however we must note that it is high time we find an alternative conflict resolution mechanism.
Historically, the last three years have come with strike and coincidentally those strike have been in the month of June, we cannot fold our arms and watch, let's know that other Universities also experience disagreements but if there was unity, things can be sorted out.
I totally want to express my deep concern towards this latest development, knowing fully well that Students even have to travel again to long distances and looking at the rate of accidents lately, it is not advisable that students leave the University, remember that they never came for Tourism and shouldn't leave like they are on expedition, safety of life and property which the University has attached this decision to may not be achieved if students are allowed to travel in the Psychological state , gosh, that sucks ! We must ensure that we stop repeating same mistakes that we have repeated all along.
It high time we also advocate our right, just as ASUU is advocating for their own rights too, we are in no way contesting the right of ASUU to demand their right nor the powers of the school to declare closure but when this decisions alter future of thousands then we may begin to ask what we are been thought as leaders of tomorrow.
The two owner state government of Governor Abiola Ajimobi and Mr. Rauf Aregbesola of Oyo and Osun state should please consider our future and consider the funding of education fundamental enough to the development of our country.
The above is the cry in virtually all State and Federal institutions all around the country. Just like South-African student , Nigeria students have a lot of reasons to declare a national boycott and mass protest on the scale of the sort of nationwide mobilizations of student which they were known for in the 80s under the then vibrant and ever militant National Association of Nigeria Student (NANS).
To start with, there are still a large number of Nigerian youths who are deprived of freedom to learn for a lot of reasons, poverty or prejudice or the absence of adequate and effective educational facilities and policies. And as citizens of a democratic society whose moral premise is that each individual has a right to that education that will permit him to achieve his maximum growth as a person, our duty is to work for, and support, whatever measures of reconstruction we deem necessary to remove the social obstacles to freedom of learning.
Now despite over more than 10years economic boom when Nigeria made millions of dollar daily crude oil sales (with exception of the decline during 2007/2008 global economic crisis) , funding of public education as been a meager stipend while fees increased , not even talking the wasteful time of ASUU strike actions .
The result is a big financial burden on working class parent who have suffered untold hardship to scrape together money to pay high fees at the beginning of every academic session. Apart from those who face autonomic exclusion and do not even bother to make the effort to apply ,thousand more drop out of school after their first or second year when their poor payment savings suddenly run dry ,when there is a sudden hike in fees or familiar member, lose jobs or fall sick.
For instance, after the Babatunde Raji Fashola led Lagos state government in 2011 the school fees of Lagos state University skyrocket from #25,000 to an alarming #350,000, the full-time students’ population of the university dropped from about 20,000 to around 12,000 over the course of the next three years. It took a massive struggle involving students, education unions, and groups like Education Right Campaign (ERC), National Association Of Nigerian Students (NANS), Joint Action Front (JAF), for the skyrocketed fee to be reversed in August, 2014. The same case happened in Obafemi Awolowo University Ile ife and University of Ibadan last year.
As a result, the government resolve to making pro- capitalist policy at turning public education into a profit-making venture, funding for essential facilities in the tertiary institutions is being cut. While grants given to faculties and departments are never enough to cover their most basic overhead cost. After paying tuition, students will have to pay huge amount of money as faculty fee, departmental fee and other administrative titled fees. Essential facilities like hostels, water, electricity supply, and security and medical clinics are rarely allocated enough funds even though Ladoke Akintola University is a non-residential school, students had to sort their accommodation with the host community of Ogbomosho which is another expensive expenditure after paying the huge tuition fee.
Government’s mantra has been that universities and tertiary institutions should find creative ways of improving their Internally Generated Revenue, IGR, through increasing fees, applications for grants from donor agencies and private bodies and setting up enough profit ventures like ‘pure water’ and bottled water businesses, pre-degree, distance learning and ICT training programs etc.
While the idea that tertiary institutions should engage in business and other ventures aside their core objective often lead to wastage of time, energy and resources on activities that have no correlation to improving quality of education in the respective institutions, this practice also expose students and members of staff to horrible welfare and working conditions .In fact, so terrible are the conditions of study in Nigeria that the students are dying in droves across the country due to the negligence and inadequacy of functional facilities and reluctant personnel.
Without any good sanitary provision and the lecture theatres, libraries and laboratories which are often denuded of the reluctant materials for learning, it is only recently that the reality has begun to dawn that so underfunded, under-provisioned and under-staffed at the health centers into which many students have gone, never to return.
Another ridiculous scenario, under the pressure of cut in allocation and the need to ensure that only properly registered students benefit from medical attention, even though they paid for it already, the institution have now adopted a ridiculous policy that authorized medical personnel to withhold treatment unless an identification of the health center is produced regardless of their state at consciousness even school identification card are not considered.
This has led to at least six deaths that I know of last year. Examples are Fathai Kolawole at Ladoke Akintola University, ogbomoso, Mayowa Alaran at the University of Ibadan, Oluchi Anekwe at the University of lagos, Akintaro Rapheal at the Polytechnic Ibadan and Maria Atere at the Federal University of Agriculture Abeokuta. They were all neglected at their respective institution’s health centres and died in the process.
Our society cannot continue to imbibe its fabrics with incessant and apparent exhibition of absurdities by the government and school authorities in our institutions of learning. In this jet age when academic excellence and moral uprightness is taking it pride of place in most develop countries, our society must not pay deaf ears by allowing our students to continue to wallow in abject neglect of their financial status. Without fighting for improved funding of education and democratic running at schools, not only would hundreds of thousand continue to be excluded from higher education, even the few who are fortunate to afford the high fees would find themselves falling victim of the terrible condition in the system. In this wise, we have to build a mass movement to demand that education should not be both debt and death sentence.
Unless something is hurriedly done, the condition of public education look set to get worse in the next period. The situation in Osun, Oyo, and Kogi States where public education has come under threats are indications of what to expect. Using the economic crisis and revenue decline as an excuse, the Buhari government could implements austerity policies dressed up as cost-saving measure.
During his first coming as a military ruler in 1984, Buhari stopped the public- funded cafeteria system which ensures subsidized meal for university students. Given half of a chance, they could completely convert public education into something the children of the poor cannot have a chance at having, and their excuse would be the on-going economic crisis and the need for reforms.
But one central lesson that all students in Nigeria must take from the struggle in South Africa is that even during an economic crisis, we can force government to retreat on its neo-liberal attacks on education and win big concession on fees, funding, living and learning conditions also correct the structural imbalance of the quota system in our educational structure.
As I write you this epistle Obafemi Awolowo University , Ile Ife , Osun state and Ladoke Akintola University Of Technology, ogbomoso , Oyo state , Kogi state university, Kogi state is closed down for failure of the government to carry out their fundamental duties . The situation is dire but all is not yet lost. Proactive action here and now can prevent the total destruction and desolation of even the charade of Educational rights shown by the Buhari led government. It is within the purview of the NANS, ERC and JAF bodies to come to the aid of students and summon the might and power of all other student bodies to talk and/or fight our way out of this malady, before students from less privileged homes are finally and blatantly denied their most basic rights to sound and quality education. If care is not taken people call Nigeria giant of Africa, Nigeria will not only become dwarf but shrub of Africa.
As I drop my pen at this point, I will not hide under obscure or pseudo-monikers I am yours in nation building, Fawole Israel Olamiposi, Nursing department, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomosho Oyo state. He is the Speaker Faculty of Basic Medical Sciences Student Association.
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