The tertiary system has gone terribly wrong!
Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa. Perhaps, it’s also the country in Africa with the largest number of citizens in diaspora. It has been said, and probably without exaggeration, that in Africa, Nigeria has the highest number of educated workforce living/working outside the country. Why the brain drain? Simple: everyone is running from the many problems that have become the lot of the country. The problems (economic, education, infrastructure, corruption) of Nigeria are as numerous as its people. Be that as it may, Nigerians remain proud of their nationality.
What is troubling at the moment is the current impasse between Nigerian government and the Academic staff Union of Universities (ASUU). Students in public universities are still at home because of the ongoing ASUU strike. My concern here is not about the cause(s) of the strike. Rather, I wish to remind all the Stakeholders, especially the government, that it is their responsibility to provide students with the education they have been promised after being offered places following their performance in the highly competitive JAMB examination. If a student is admitted for a 4-year program, why should the student be made to spend 6 to 8 years due to no fault of theirs?
The situation is deplorable and smacks of lack of proper planning and management. In fact, it is a waste of money to keep schools running when there are no students in the classrooms. Also, since students in private Nigerian universities and those abroad experience no such interruptions, their counterparts in public/government owned Nigerian universities feel like second class citizens because their parents cannot afford to send them to those tertiary institutions.
The bottom line here is this: students are the clients and without them, no educational institution has the right to exist. If political differences can be largely resolved, so can the government and ASUU resolve the present stalemate.
In the interest of innocent students, it’s time to stop the incessant disruptions in the Nigerian public universities. Students should no longer be made to suffer when the two elephants fight.
Or what do you think?
