The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) on Wednesday lamented that the poor welfare conditions of public university lecturers are responsible for the reluctance of qualified individuals to take up jobs in the university system.

The University of Ibadan (UI) Chairman of the union, Professor Ayo Akinwole, stated this in a New Year message made available to journalists in Ibadan.

Akinwole said the situation also affects primary and secondary schools, where ?the teachers are not well-paid, leading to the reluctance of qualified teachers to take up employment in public primary and secondary schools, paving the way for untrained and unqualified teachers to hold sway. The result of this has been the proliferation of private schools, most of which are out of the reach of the poor due to the exorbitant fees they charge.?

According to the professor, the university system witnessed stagnation in 2024, stating that but for the sacrifices of the lecturers, the university system would have been thrown into another industrial crisis because of the lacklustre attitude of the federal government towards the plight of lecturers.

He noted further that Nigeria?s education is likely to remain the same because it has been allocated about 7 percent (N3.52 trillion) in the 2025 budget (N47.90 trillion), ?which falls far below the benchmark of 15 percent ? 20 percent educational budget for underdeveloped countries like Nigeria, specified by both UNESCO and United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA), which has been advocated by our union.?

While lauding the Federal Government for setting up a committee to renegotiate the 2009 FGN/ASUU agreement, Akinwole warned against delayed tactics as characterized in previous administrations.

?To be sure, since 2017, various committees had been put in place by the government to renegotiate the agreement with ASUU. For instance, the Babalakin-led Joint Renegotiation Committee was set up, followed by the Emeritus Professor Munzali Jubril-led Committee, and then the Late Prof. Nimi Briggs-led Committee, which yielded a draft agreement between the committee and ASUU in 2021. Unfortunately, the Buhari administration refused to sign the agreement reached by a committee set up by it.

It is, therefore, our opinion that instead of a fresh renegotiation of the agreement, the Tinubu-led administration should rather set in motion a process that will lead to the review and signing of the Nimi Briggs-led renegotiated draft agreement as a mark of goodwill and assured hope for Nigeria?s public universities,? he said.

The ASUU boss also criticized President Bola Tinubu?s agenda to eliminate TETFund under the tax administration bill, stating that this will kill the little infrastructural funding which TETFund has been executing from 2030.

?This misbegotten policy will have huge and adverse implications for the university system in Nigeria. This is, no doubt, an attempt to destroy the major source of infrastructural funding for already struggling public tertiary institutions. It is also an attempt to commodify university education in Nigeria. A part of the tax administration bill proposes eliminating the education tax, to be replaced by a ?development levy.? This would effectively disrupt the revenue stream of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), an agency set up as a product of the ingenuity and struggles of ASUU, which has been the major source of funding for infrastructure development in many public tertiary institutions over the last decade.

?Since its establishment in 2011, TETFund has monitored the disbursement of education tax to public tertiary institutions in Nigeria. However, with this new bill, only 50 percent of the monies accruing to the levy would go to TETFund in 2025 and 2026. TETFund?s share will be upped to 66 percent in 2027, 2028, and 2029. Then, the agency would cease to get any revenue from 2030. From 2030, the development levy will be solely meant to fund the federal government?s student loan scheme. What this means is that the agency that funds infrastructural development in Nigerian tertiary institutions is under the threat of extinction by 2030.?

?It is a public hazard to conscript academics into an endless struggle for survival. There is a low level of motivation and an increasing rate of flight from the present condition at the slightest opportunity,? he added.

Setting an agenda for 2025, Professor Akinwole asked President Tinubu to pay attention to the ?welfare of workers in the education sector, considering the state of the national economy and the high cost of living, which has deepened the erosion of the conditions of service of our members.?

The ASUU boss stated that it is expected that ?the withheld three-and-a-half months? salaries and third-party deductions owed our members should be paid forthwith. We also expect that the Earned Academic Allowances (EAA) should be released, just as we expect that the funding for the revitalization of the universities should be released in accordance with the FGN-ASUU MoU of 2012, 2013, and the MoA of 2017.

?In the absence of visible and concrete efforts at addressing the pending issues and meeting our expectations, there is likely to be a long-drawn confrontation between our union and the federal government, which will probably lead to another round of untold avoidable crisis in the university system in Nigeria.? (The Guardian)

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