Nigeria’s Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), on Tuesday, raised the alarm that most departments and units in public universities in the country are short-staffed due to the resignation of lecturers in search of greener pastures.
This is just as the union said poor and delayed salaries, unpaid allowances, poor infrastructure, lack of respect for the academic community and the seeming dwindling hope are some of the factors responsible for the resignation of lecturers in the past few months.
The Chairman, University of Ibadan Chapter of ASUU, Prof. Ayo Akinwole, while speaking with journalists in Ibadan, lamented that public universities are in a very pitiable condition with stress and frustration visible on the faces of poorly-remunerated lecturers.
According to Akinwole, unless President Bola Tinubu arrests the situation by reviewing the conditions of service in terms of salaries and allowances, and improve infrastructure, many good hands will continue to resign and leave the country.
The ASUU boss noted that it is unfortunate that the same government that is not funding education has a National Assembly proposing to establish 32 more universities.
While maintaining that establishing more universities will not solve the problem, Akinwole rather suggested improving the carrying capacity of existing universities to be able to admit more students.
He noted that the Union has received reports on how colleagues resign on a monthly basis because of the way lecturers are treated and poorly remunerated in Nigeria, stating that universities around the world are poaching more quality hands and if not halted by the government through intentional reviewing upward conditions of service, it will be difficult to “retain the best hands.”
The ASUU boss further revealed that government policy has made it difficult to even retain good hands because to employ and get approval from Abuja may take up to a year and by that time, the good candidate has left for greener pastures.
He said, “Vice Chancellors cannot single handedly employ to replace staff as urgent as it is needed again. They have to contact Abuja for approval which may take six months to a year, if not more, before they get sich approval. By this time, the best candidate has gone to a more serious country that respects quality. Sadly, people from higher up there from the Ministry of Education to legislators themselves want to dictate who the universities should employ.”
Akinwole lamented that the situation has become so bad such that those who know little about how a university should be run now dictate how to administer universities.
Kemi Olaitan in Ibadan
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