ASUU Strike: Varsity Funding Model Outdated – Vice-chancellors

Vice-chancellors of Nigerian universities have declared the current funding model of the ivory towers outdated.

Through the secretary-general of the Committee of Vice Chancellors of Nigerian Universities (CVCNU), Prof Yakubu Ochefu, the university administrators said the current model of funding of the institutions was out of tune with global realities.

In an exclusive interview with LEADERSHIP Friday, Ochefu said the federal government does not at this point in time possess the will to rejig university education in particular and tertiary education in general.

The CVCNU scribe, who was reacting to the recent comment by the minister of state for Education, Emeka Nwajiuba who said, “It doesn’t make sense for members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to continue to earn salaries while on strike,” noted that the minister was simply quoting the extant labour law Section 43 of the Trade Dispute.

On the minister’s claim that the Federal Ministry of Education is not the employer of the lecturers, but only a supervisory body and therefore cannot fire or hire someone, Ochefu said he is correct as the law establishing all federal universities state that the Governing Council of each university is the employer of all its staff.

However, he said, “The ministry and its parastatals, the NUC provide regulatory and oversight functions. Having said that, the problem is the funding to the universities to pay its staff does not come from the council. In this regard the autonomy of the council is at best half, given that they derive the most important part of their powers (finances) from the federal government.

“My take is that the federal government does not at this point in time possess the will to rejig university education in particular and tertiary education in general. The current model of funding, governance and relationship is outdated and out of tune with global realities. Higher education is the catalyst of the 4th Industrial Revolution (which is a knowledge revolution).

“Until the Federal Government of Nigeria sits with the core stakeholders to positively disrupt our current models of funding, governance, regulatory functions, industry relations and research, we will continue to recycle a model that failed nearly 40 years ago and expect that it will work somehow.

“Like Buckminster Fuller put it, ‘You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete’,” he said.

The Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP) has said it will resume its suspended strike if within the next 30 the federal government fails to address the outstanding issues the union has raised.

The chairman of the ASUP, Kaduna Polytechnic chapter, Mohammed Mohammed, disclosed this while addressing a press conference yesterday, saying the decision was the outcome of an exhaustive deliberations on the issues already listed at the 102nd meeting of the union’s National Executive Council which had resolved to give the government a further one month as an ultimatum to address the outstanding issues listed, or face a review of the suspended industrial action by the union.

He also lamented the delay in the appointment of rectors adding, “Federal Polytechnics Mubi, Kaduna Offa and Ekowe remain without rectors despite the conclusion of the process for appointment of rectors in the affected institutions.”

The chairman appealed to members of the public to prevail on the government to do the needful and avoid a shutdown of the sector saying, “In choosing to extend the long expired three months suspension period of our industrial actions, we are convinced that the extra window of one month typifies our level of restraint and consideration for our students and other members of the public even as well hope that the government will take advantage of this opportunity to avoid a shutdown of the sector.