IT should not come as a surprise if Education Minister, Dr. Sam Egwu no longer sleeps well these days. The unassuming politician, who had a fairly good run as Governor of Ebonyi State, and who prefers to avoid controversies, must now be wondering why the Ministry of Education has been difficult to manage, and the education sector so tough to handle.

As Nigeria celebrates its 49th Independence anniversary today, the position of the country's education sector has moved from bad to worse. Each time the Minister tries to take a step forward, emerging challenges force him to take three steps backward.

Egwu's appointment as Minister, coming after Igwe Aja - Nwachukwu, whose tenure was adjudged the worst since 1999, was embraced with a lot of expectations. In the beginning, Egwu pronounced the right words, met with the stakeholders at the right time, made good promises, and within a stipulated period, came up with a detailed Roadmap. But that was as far as he could go. Right under his nose, things began to fall apart. The worry, however, is that from all indications, the Minister does not seem to have a good idea, nor people with sound initiatives on how to fix the challenges. Every passing day, the education sector gets deeper into turmoil. Strikes are everywhere. From the Universities, to the secondary and primary schools, academic and non-academic staff unions are on strike. If the Minister was previously not bothered about the strike declared by primary and secondary school teachers, since they are directly under that States, the declaration of an industrial action by teachers of the 104 Unity Schools, which are directly under the federal government has certainly added to his woes. And to make things worse, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has declared support for all the unions, with accusing fingers pointing directly at the door of the Education Minister.

Egwu's first major challenge was the absence of a budget to work with. At the time he launched the Roadmap, the Minister could not say, categorically, what the allocation to the education sector in this year's budget was. Second, Egwu has not yet fixed the problem from within the Federal Ministry of Education, which awash with determined saboteurs. A source told The Guardian last week that while the Minister was busy putting the Roadmap together, the "saboteurs" were laughing and wondering how he intends to achieve his dreams. Members of this group promote corruption, slow and eventually frustrate good policies, and ensure that files and communiqus never get to the right tables.

Then, the method adopted by the FME to deal with the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT), the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and the Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria (ASCSN) showed some lack of coordination and understanding on the part of government. To make things worse, the Minister made some wrong pronouncements that were termed insensitive or uncaring at a time of crisis. When the NUT first declared its intention to go on strike over the Teachers' Salary Scale (TSS), the FME reacted by saying that it was not the business of the federal government. The argument was that since the states were directly in charge, it was a matter for them. But the statement irked the NUT members, and the union leadership launched a verbal attack on the Education Minister.

When the ASUU challenge came up, the FME, again, did not handle matters in a coordinated way. The University teachers have been having issues with the federal government since 1992, and Egwu was not the first Minister to have been confronted with the challenge. But when a largely uncoordinated FME team decided to take up issues a highly experienced ASUU side, it became clear that a stalemate would occur.

When The Guardian asked the President of ASUU, Prof. Ukachukwu Awuzie in June why the dons decided to go on strike, he responded that the federal government's lack of seriousness forced the strike option on the dons. His words: "The union believes that we should not go on strike at all. But the fact is that strike is a last option. I have heard people talk of ASUU using other options, but none has proffered one of those options. For avoidance of doubt, ASUU knows only one alternative to strike and that is dialogue and reaching out for external interventions. When all these fail, and dialogue becomes a dialogue between the deaf and dumb, the only option left becomes a strike action. This is used for calling for intervention by all those who should do so.

"Our union adopted the strike option because there is evidence to show that Government is not serious about signing the agreement and implementing it. Otherwise, how could it be that a letter addressed to the visitor of Federal Universities, through the Minister of Education by the Chairman, on behalf of the Negotiating Committee about eighteen (18) month ago (as at June), has up till date not been replied? How come that 51 months after negotiation was concluded and the draft endorsed by the leaders of the two negotiating teams, government has not, as of date, given the leader of her team the authority to sign the agreement? How come that the product of negotiated agreement should be subjected to a Government Technical Committee, an act that violates the principle of collective bargaining? And how come that ASUU should be invited to Abuja, albeit, by text to come and sign a agreement, only to be told by the chairman of the Negotiating Committee that he had not received any authority from his principal to sign the agreement?

It was because of all the above that NEC became suspicious of the actions of government and hence decided to alert the Nigerian public of the development through the warning strike. It was with great pains that ASUU- NEC took that decision. It may be pertinent to state that the FGN/ASUU negotiation has lasted for two and half years, making it the longest in the history of FGN/ASUU negotiation. This shows how patient the union has been on the matter."

However, when Egwu was taken up on ASUU's claim, he denied that the federal government was unwilling to resolve the issues. The Minister stated that when the government looked at the issue of salary increment as demanded by ASUU, the question of how to implement and sustain the figures arose. "If they (ASUU) should have 100 per cent or 200 per cent of what they are demanding, it is not bad," Egwu had said. "The problem now came in the process of implementing this. Government is willing, but when we looked at the figure, under the present circumstances, are we able to implement and sustain the figure they are requesting for? Willingness to pay is different from the ability to pay."

However, the ASUU leadership has variously debunked the insinuation by the government that salary increment was the main issue. The two sides have been blaming each other for the escalation of the crisis ever since, while university students have been forced to remain at home.

Stakeholders have since been appealing to the two sides to reach a compromise. The National Parent Teacher Association (NAPTAN) recently called on the two parties to return to the negotiating table. The Action Congress, Arewa Consultative Forum and other professional bodies have also made the same appeal. The effort of the Senate Committee on Education, chaired by Mrs. Joy Emodi failed before it could even start. Not even the appeal by the Vice President, Goodluck Jonathan to ASUU to return to work made any impact. The idea that the University teachers should first suspend their strike before negotiation could continue was unacceptable to them. And just last Tuesday, Edo State governor, Mr. Adams Oshiomhole waded into the matter at the instance of the federal government.

Meanwhile, members of the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU), who have also been on strike, decide to take their case to God since, according to them, the government was not heeding the advice of prominent Nigerians. After an emergency meeting recently, the union's National Executive Council ordered its members to embark on fasting and praying for three days to seek God's favour.

On their part, teachers in the Unity Colleges declared a strike following the federal government's refusal, they claimed, to implement the recommendations by the Senator Jonathan Silas Zwingina Committee on the repositioning of the Unity Colleges.

The NUT members, in states where the 27.5 salary increment was not implemented are also on strike. Lagos is one of them. Also at a recent briefing, the Lagos chapter of the NUT specifically accused the Lagos State government of insensitivity. So, who will rescue the education sector?


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