National Issues
ASUU, FG And Nigerian Students: The Elephants And The Grass -By Abdulbasit Toriola
As the ply unfolds, the Nigerian Educational Sector is witnessing loss of bright talents to the diaspora, to future crisis and even to the proverbial devil’s workshop. This may mislead many Nigerian youths to rightfully questioning where the gap education is bridging really is.
Industrial conflicts between the two major Nigerian educational actors, ASUU and FG, have often relayed messages of the country’s underlying industrial issues of wages & remuneratives unmet, poor physical working conditions, erosion of autonomy and overall underfunding. Quite expectedly, when industrial conflicts like this ensue between two elephants, there is always a third party, a grass, that gets trampled.
ASUU, the Academic Staff Union of Universities, since 1999 democracy have – in the course of promoting their member interests and revamping the university system – opened up the country’s student to new implications. On a larger scale, ASUU’s incessant strikes has it drawbacks on the Nigerian educational sector and its development.
Disruptions to academic calendars have always have a knock-on effect on the learning capabilities of a student owing to rush of academic workloads, C.A tests & exams. In fact, in a study of 604 respondents (all of whom were students), 51.6% admitted that ASUU strikes have had a negative influence on their academics.
This lends hands to a sub-par university experience for the students with lower CGPAS, supply of mediocre graduates into the working economy, and ultimately, a lower GDP for the country.
In cases where the student’s sponsor have the financial buoyancy to question the necessity of ASUU’s strikes, they withdraw from Nigeria’s flunctuacies to seek greener pastures abroad hence contributing to the hefty sum Nigeria has lost to overseas studies which according to a review of CBN’s data was a massive $28.65 billion from 2010 to 2020.
On a more grassroot level, interruptions of academic programmes are purely non-motivational factors. They long wind a student’s statutory duration in school leaving them vulnerable to the two elephants in a tight corner where they themselves tussle with idleness and cluenessless as to what to do. Anxiety and mental health issues may even cloud them thus waning their interest in their chosen programmes again and again.
As the ply unfolds, the Nigerian Educational Sector is witnessing loss of bright talents to the diaspora, to future crisis and even to the proverbial devil’s workshop. This may mislead many Nigerian youths to rightfully questioning where the gap education is bridging really is.
Abdulbasit Toriola is an undergraduate at the University of Lagos. He writes, in his freetime, on his blog at blackgeeks.com.ng
