ASUU And Strikes

From media reports, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) is warming up for another of its pastimes – Strike. Fortunately, it has nothing to do with the federal government for not acting on the agreed terms of their negotiations but against the Vice Chancellors for engaging the services of those they refer to as Professors of Practice.

What this points out is that the union and the lecturers are not fully engaged and are endlessly looking for flimsy excuses to call its members out into the streets.

We are in support of collective bargaining which is how unions protect the interest of its members.  But our argument is that it should be for issues that are serious and hurtful to overriding public interest. Not professors of practice.

By definition, these are distinguished professionals appointed in higher education institutions to bring real-world expertise and practical experience into academic teaching and research.

The role of a Professor of Practice is designed to bridge the gap between academia and industry. The idea behind it, according the promoters of the concept, is to enhance the quality of higher education by integrating practical knowledge into classrooms and research programmes. They also argue that the initiative aligns with the National Education Policy 2020, which emphasises skill-based education, vocational integration, and stronger industry-academia collaboration. Furthermore, the promoters of the idea stress that it has the potential to contribute to experiential learning, mentoring, entrepreneurship, and extension activities, benefiting both students and society by producing graduates equipped with relevant skills.

The engagement of a Professor of Practice is for a fixed term, initially up to one year, with a maximum of three years at a given institution, extendable by one year in exceptional cases, but not exceeding four years in total. Their appointment is exclusive of sanctioned faculty posts, ensuring that it does not affect regular faculty recruitment. Remuneration is consolidated and mutually agreed between the institution and the professional, applicable for both full-time and part-time engagements. So, what is ASUU afraid of?

This newspaper is persuaded by the possibilities inherent in this concept to encourage the university authorities, that is, the Vice-Chancellors, to go ahead and recruit as many of them as they can afford.

We will always support any measure that improves the quality of products in the Nigerian university system.

Already, there is a pervasive opinion that the nation’s universities produce unemployable graduates who not only need to be retrained before engaging them but are also often not accepted for postgraduate studies abroad, compared to what was obtainable years back.

These unsavory developments constitute gross national embarrassment which should, under normal circumstances, worry the lecturers. As is often said, if the dish is tasteless, blame the chef.

The sad commentary is that the lecturers are becoming underproductive often always focusing attention on their private businesses using official time and resources to build up themselves and their economic alliances which is why strikes are so attractive.

We are, therefore, worried that the staff union is acting against a policy designed to raise the standard of university education in the country. They ought to be delighted that someone is doing something positive about the universities bedevilled  by senseless strikes and negative unionism that adds no value to the students whose parents bear the brunt due to wasted time and resources.

Worse, in our view, is the corruption within the academia where some of the members indulge in shameless sex for marks and ‘sorting,’ a pejorative term for the indecency of lecturers exchanging marks for cash with students.

The union claims that the concept was an undue interference by political actors, governing councils and some vice chancellors. Maybe. And that is because of the pressure of solving a problem that is perceptibly intentionally concocted by the union and its members for their warped benefits.

In our opinion, the union is scared of losing what is left of its members’ relevance.

The union ought to know that universities, as intellectual communities, are a fertile ground for cross fertilisation of ideas for the benefit of the larger society.

The problem with Nigerian universities is essentially complacency on the part of the academic community always so eager to go on strike. Otherwise, why is the union threatening to embark on one because of an issue that is aimed at augmenting their miserable contribution to an essential sector of the nation’s life.

In most advanced economies the phrase town and gown is used to demonstrate the synergy that should exist between the academic community and the private sector especially the industry in the form of research and development. Not much of that happens here because the little there are end up in private practices sponsored by these same lecturers.

We hope the vice chancellors will not allow their attentions to be diverted from this noble policy.