Fine. Nice innovation, let's see how it goes. My skul ehn, the name ehn, no be private skul ooo ehn, but we be private students ehn....lol. Fashola private skul, LASU! #No1stateUniversity. Don't doubt peeps!

THE NIGERIA’s UNIVERSITY QUESTION, BY SYLVESTER ODION-AKHAINE
Posted by: webmaster Posted date: October 03, 2013 In: Articles & Opinions,
Headlines, National News, News | comment : 0
In the last three months, we have watched with bewilderment the mind-boggling
kid-gloves approach adopted by the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) over its
agreement with the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).
The height of it is the last September national media briefing of President Goodluck
Jonathan. The president who was asked about his position on the ASUU strike
said inter alia, “In the past, they did not go this far when strikes were called off but
now politics has gone into everything.” This response is an uncomplicated
indication of the low level of leadership in the country. The president seeks to
create the impression that ASUU strike was politically motivated. This is far from
the truth and we wish to highlight some salient points at issue in the three-month
old standoff for the benefit of many Nigerians who are yet to grapple with the
basics.
The university is the highest place of learning in most societies. It is a place for
research, knowledge production and reproduction as well as its use for the benefit
of society. The commitment of academics is the pursuit of truth wherever it leads
and this is central to the autonomy of the university. It is not a place to be indicted
for ‘teaching what one is paid not to teach.’ It is a place of dissent and controversy
and that is the dialectics of arriving at the truth. Countries which believe in the
development and transformation of their society invest heavily in education. The
industrialized countries of the world invested in research and capacity building and
therefore were able to attain the height of development which they occupy today.
It is to be noted that developing countries that have caught up with the first world
have also invested heavily in education and training. Japan, South Korea, China,
Malaysia, Taiwan Singapore, Indonesia to name a few have all invested heavily in
education making the respected scholar, Amartya Sen, to christen education in
Asia, and especially in China, as the “Eastern Strategy”. South Korea alone
commits over 60 percent of its public spending to achieve universal primary
education. China invested $1.26 trillion representing 4 percent of its GDP on
education in the last five years. Its institutions have access to all published
journals worldwide. Indonesia invested 29.5 percent of its public spending in 2011
alone.
UNESCO recommends 26 percent of a country’s annual budget to education. In
Africa, Ghana tops the list of country with a huge 31percent, Cote d’Ivoire, 30;
Uganda 27; Morocco 26. 1; Swaziland, 24.6; South Africa 25.8; Kenya, 23;
Botswana, 19; Burkina Faso, 16.8 and Nigeria hugs the bottom at 8.4.
Tell us how a Nigerian scholar can compete effectively with his/her colleagues
elsewhere availed with so much huge learning resources. Celestin Monga once
identified four deficits in Africa. These include deficit of self-esteem; deficit of
knowledge and learning; deficit of leadership and deficit of communication. In the
twenty-first century, the worst deficit is that of knowledge and learning. In Nigeria
and elsewhere in the continent it is due largely to naive consciousness of the
leaders who believe that development can come about by miracle and rhetoric.
Simply put, it is surrender to irrationality. This is the scourge which ASUU is
fighting.
It is important to reaffirm here what ASUU demands are in the current standoff. The
demands are that the FG implements agreements in three separate documents: the
2009 Agreement; the January 24, 2012 Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with
Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) and the July 2012 Needs
Assessment Report on Nigeria public universities. The common elements in the
documents are that: 1) Government shall provide N1.3tr and N1.6tr funding for
addressing the rot and decay in the universities. The MoU specified N100 billion for
2012 and N400 billion for each of the three years 2013-2015. 2) Payment of
earned allowances to all staff in 24 federal universities. The allowances for July
2009 to April 2013 stand as N92b.
Government insists that ASUU must forget about the agreements because ‘they
are just on paper’. It wants to provide 100 billion for funding and N30 billion for
earned allowances on a ‘take it or leave it’ basis. ASUU says no. Do note however
that even the N100 billion which source the FGN has refused to disclose is to be
taken from Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND) already set aside for the
universities.
Earnest leadership elsewhere knows the significance of education. Recently,
France made public its policy to build a digital economy based on research and
training. At the turn of the Millennium, Bill Clinton made public his policy to put
every American child in school and improve the standard through systems
assessment and accountability as basic requirement for today’s world economy.
About the same time, Tony Blair made bold to say that the British would control
the information superhighway in the new century. What is the Nigerian vision?
None. The staff-student ratio of 1:30 is hardly met in our tertiary institutions and
so is the staff mix of 20 percent professorial cadre, 35 percent senior lecturers
category and 45 percent others.
Full-time staff are complimented by adjuncts and associates lecturers in order to
meet National University Commission benchmark. Now private universities
proliferate the landscape with low staff capacity and churning out deficient
graduates to justify the huge amount of money parents pay. Virtually all those in
leadership position in the country today have their children enrolled in schools
abroad. Does anyone need to go far to know why they are not bothered?
The situation in our universities today is so bad that we cannot produce globally
competitive graduates. Majority of graduates are simply unemployable. The
consequence of the FG’s imprudence is that the tertiary institutions in the country
will suffer a triple tragedy: half-baked graduates, deficiency of academic staff and
development stasis. Indeed, many of our colleagues who out of patriotism returned
to the country to help turn around the dwindling fortunes of our institutions will
return to overseas where their services are valued. Without ambiguity, political and
financial commitments are required to pull the country’s education sector out of
the woods.
Parents especially must realise that the ASUU cause is not self-serving, not about
salaries and not politically motivated; they must also resist the logical inclination
to prize their wards’ immediate plight above the collective and longer term interest
of rescuing our educational system from the brink of the abyss. Everybody must
hold the leadership accountable and demand for it to do the right thing. Indeed,
public officials wallow brazenly in affluence unchecked and to be acquiescent at
this time is to be supportive of the status quo.
The amount already earmarked for the ‘centenary celebrations’ in 2014 will
conveniently address the immediate emergencies in the educational sector. We
therefore, employ this opportunity to call on parents and well-meaning Nigerians
to appreciate the demand of ASUU and put pressure on the FGN to save education
and the future of our children.
Odion-Akahaine, Phd, is a Senior Lecturer, Department of Political Science, Lagos
State University, LASU, Lagos Nigeria.

P.I.P PEDOPHILES IN POWER

Its a laudable move. But hey, French Village is not in Benin Republic, its in Badagry. I just finished my 300L there last month awaiting to resume final year.

9jacrip: This is a good move, this guy keeps impressing.

My question is - does this mean French Students in Osun State won't have to travel to 'French Village' in Benin Republic for their usual 300L 'internship'?

A very nice innovative by govnor Fashola again. When is it starting pls?

I was in badagry when this barbaric incident happened,I couldn't believe when I heard about it, the truth is they intentionally killed those guys because I could remember one badagry boy said "if truly they steal, they would not have killed them if they were Egun(the dialect they speak in badagry)". Its quite unfortunate, with the police looking at barbarians killing innocent boys in mid afternoon of 4:00pm. Its shows how un civilize this people(badagry) are, the same people that sold us to the whites many years ago. LET THE WOLRD KNOWS THAT THIS PEOPLE DISCRIMINATE!!!

Its quite unfortunate that up till this moment, we still lie for ourselves to be united in this country! This same set of people have ruled this country for 35yrs since independent(the longest zone to rule) and this same people hold major political and parastatals offices nationwide, come to think of it, this same set of people are the ones that cause chaos and violence in this country. Innocent people die everyday in the quest for power! Whoever knows GEJ should tell him to convey national conference and let's partition this country amicably. Enough of the killings and barbaric acts!!!

Nigeria’s Amalgamation a celebration of slavery, bad history – Braithwaite

on July 31, 2013 at 1:44 am in Politics

BY DAUD OLATUNJI

ABEOKUTA-Former  Presidential candidate of the defunct Nigeria Advance Party (NAP)  Dr. Tunji Braithwaite on Tuesday, faulted the planned centenary anniversary of Nigeria’s amalgamation by the presidency in 2014, describing it as a celebration of slavery and bad history.

The Human Rights Activist and lawyer who wondered why despite the myriad of problems confronting the country, coupled with the level of poverty, the Federal government still plans to celebrate the Centenary anniversary of the amalgamation of Nigeria in 1914, lamented  that the deplorable state of infrastructure in the country and  the precarious security situation are enough reason to halt the celebration.



Speaking  as guest Lecturer at the 2013 Jesus Carnival, 37th Diocesan Anniversary and 170th Year of Christianity in Egbaland in Abeokuta, the Ogun State Capital ,Dr. Braithwaite said the  celebration was a disgrace to the present generation of Nigerians.

He however, suggested that the president should celebrate the ‘’founding-fathers’ birth of Nigerian that over the years had blossomed into a strong, cohesive and socio/political vibrant force in the comity of nations.

 ‘’Instead of clinking glasses of champagne celebrating and venerating a bad history of enslavement, this generation, should use the occasion of its centenary to finally destroy its last inglorious relics and simultaneously birth a modern and progressive nation.

‘’The Die is cast!. Thee issue is not about 2015 elections or who becomes president or governor in 2015, there are a whole lot of fundamental and foundational matters to be urgently addressed before 2015’’.

“The  current generation would themselves surely, hopefully in an orderly but firm manner, resolve this core issue of their own destiny,’’ he said.

He however, warned Jonathan to be wary of the serious implication of insecurity saying, the  on-going revolution in Egypt is a classical lesson to Nigerian leaders that any charade and fraudulent elections contrived “will-nilly” is no guarantee of security of tenure of office for any unfit or insensitive government.

“The monster of king corruption and impunity in this country at every level of civil administration has exposed the tenuous and fragile foundation of Nigeria’s brand of democracy to the danger, it portends for the people.

“The  reality today of the amalgamation is that both in legal and political context, the amalgamation bond expires in 2014 by effusion of time, unless the people concerned, now voluntarily agree its terms and or modify them.

“The  single evil corruption has done to us manifests on cultism, examination malpractices among many others and it now appears as nothing is a taboo in Nigeria anymore. We prayed and worked for democracy but what type of democracy do we have now, do the people’s votes count? Are we getting the benefits of the abundance natural resources God gave us?.

“If you go to government offices, you will see huge generating sets but what about the poor who can’t afford it?, adding “If you know the huge amount this country generates, the question you will ask yourself is why should Nigerians suffer?”, Braithwaite said.

END
Source: Vanguard Newspaper