Education › Re: Recommend Threads For Frontpage by drered(m): 6:41pm On Oct 13, 2013 |
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Education › Re: The 2009 Agreement: The Cause Of The Face Off Between ASUU And The Government by drered(op): 6:31pm On Oct 13, 2013 |
fabby26: Hmmmmm.......Short of Words! This report is full of substance o. Only God will help us in this country called naija, who else can one turn to. That should have been NANS but hey its Nigeria. |
Education › Re: The 2009 Agreement: The Cause Of The Face Off Between ASUU And The Government by drered(op): 9:27am On Oct 13, 2013 |
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Education › The 2009 Agreement: The Cause Of The Face Off Between ASUU And The Government by drered(op): 4:19pm On Oct 12, 2013 |
Came across this on facebook and its quiet revealing if true. via facebook: THE PURPORTED FG-ASUU AGREEMENT!!! The reader is warned that this piece contains the implied opinion of the writer. The reader is also free to draw conclusions. Thanks to Qawiy Temitope for this excellent piece, I am much indebted.
ASUU Part Quatre: We Have An Agreement Before you complain that Peter Jackson’s Lord of The Rings only had 3 parts, I have 2 words for you – The Hobbit. First of all, shout out to the good man who dug up this agreement, scanned it and emailed it to me. As we say here in Blighty; you Sir, are the dog’s bollocks. Thank you. I think the first thing that struck me about this agreement is how strong ASUU are as a union. I wonder how other unions will feel if they see the kind of stuff ASUU managed to extract from government. Part of the reason for this, in my opinion, is immediately obvious when you look at the list of the people who negotiated for both sides. While the ASUU delegation was led by its President and senior members, the government side was led by Gamaliel Onosode and some other Professors and ex Pro-Chancellors. The highest ranking members of the negotiating team from the government side appear to be some civil servants who acted as observers’.
This is not to invalidate the agreement of course – the government clearly signed it so they should honour it. But when you look at the composition of people purportedly negotiating on behalf of the government, ASUU were already 1 nil up even before anything was signed. Does anyone know why things were done this way? Was it that relations between government and ASUU had broken down to the point where they couldn’t sit round a table and trash out the issues? Not even a minister? To the agreement proper – there were 4 main issues to be negotiated namely 1) Conditions of service [salaries] 2) Funding 3) University autonomy and freedom 4) ‘Other matters’.
Here are the highlights of the agreement as I saw them 1. ASUU asked for and got a special salary structure for themselves called Consolidated University Academic Salary Structure II(CONUASS). This CONUASS was further made up of 3 components –
1) CONUASS I [the previous one from 2007] 2) Consolidated Peculiar University Academic Allowances [CONPUAA] 3) Rent. The CONPUAA was apparently to capture all the other allowances that they wanted but not captured in the CONUASS. Stay with me. The reason why they were allowed this was because the committee agreed that ‘Nigerian academics represent the critical mass of scholars in the society’ and as a result of this they ‘deserved unique conditions that will motivate them [...] to attain greater efficiency’.
2. In exchange for this new pay, ASUU agreed to be of good behaviour and not do anything that disrupts the academic calendar to get whatever it wants i.e. no striking.
3. Next thing they did was to look at the countries where Nigerian academics frequently migrated to e.g Botswana, Ghana and other developed countries. Based on this they came up with a salary structure that would prevent this kind of brain drain. They called this Table 1. The highest salary anyone could earn based on this table was N7.5m per annum. But ASUU then seemingly looked at the government’s condition and took pity on them because the government didn’t have a lot of money and then gave them some sort of ‘discount’. This gave birth to Table 2 in which the highest possible salary was N6m. The cynic in me thinks this was simply a clever negotiating tactic but I wasn’t there.
4. As far as I am aware from all of ASUU’s statements since the strike began, the government has complied with this CONUASS salary structure. Indeed it will be difficult for the government to not pay them the salary they agreed to. It is the next bit that seems to have caused all the problems and it’s easy to see why. Something called Earned Academic Allowances was also agreed to by both parties. In essence, this was supposed to be a kind of piece-rate payment where ASUU members as academic staff were paid a fixed amount for each unit of work they did. So for supervising postgraduate students, a Professor was to be paid N25,000 per student while a Lecturer 1 and Senior Lecturer were to be paid N15,000 and N20,000 per student respectively.
For Teaching Practice/Industrial Supervision/Field Trips, a Professor was entitled to N100,000 per annum. Further, if a Professor did more than one field trip in a year, he would be paid separately for each one. Even though this money was for field trips, such an academic staff would be entitled to mileage and overnight allowance in line with government regulations. It’s unclear why, after being paid N100,000 for a field trip, the same person will then be entitled to mileage and overnight allowance. What is the definition of ‘field trip’ I wonder?
There was also Honoraria for helping to conduct exams internally or externally ranging from N45,000 for Master’s to N105,000 for Doctorate. For moderating external undergraduate or postgraduate exams, there was a separate honoraria ranging from N60,000 for 50 undergraduate students to N80,000 for more than 10 postgraduate students. To encourage young academics to ‘further’, postgraduate study grants were to be given – N350,000 per session (up to a maximum of 2 sessions) for a science based masters and N500,000 per session (up to a maximum of 4 sessions) for a science based doctorate. The figures were N250,000 and N350,000 respectively for non science studies. I am not too familiar with the intricacies of academia but another N200,000 was to be paid to external assessors for the position of Reader and Professor. Call duty and clinical hazard allowances were to be paid to those who qualified to them per existing government regulations. It is unclear what a Responsibility Allowance is (at least to me) but a Vice Chancellor and Librarian were entitled to N750,000 per annum for this allowance while ‘all other officers’ were entitled to N150,000. Excess Workload Allowance was to be paid per hour to teaching staff ranging from N2,000 per hour for a Graduate Assistant to N3,500 per hour for a Professor.
You can see the problem with these allowances – there is no way for the government to know how much they will cost in advance. They could cost N10bn or they could cost N100bn. Lecturers would simply submit the bills and the government would have to cough up the money. You can also see that ASUU played a clever hand by giving the government a ‘discount’ on the base salaries while loading up with all sorts of allowances elsewhere. For a lecturer earning say N3m per annum, it wonttake much for he/she to earn an extra say 50% of that salary through all these allowances. The government isn’t there on the campus so it will simply get the bill to pay. And I have not even mentioned corruption.
5. There were other non-salary benefits in the agreement as well. Each academic staff was entitled to a car loan equivalent to his/her annual salary charged at 2% for administrative cost (stop laughing). They were also entitled to a car refurbishment loan for those who wanted to refurbish their old cars, again charged at 2%. At least with a car loan you get to see the new car if you want to, but refurbishment? That’s just money in the bush. For housing loans, each academic was entitled to 8 times his/her annual salary to buy a house. After 6 years service, an academic would be entitled to a sabbatical leave. If this sabbatical was abroad, the university would pay the ‘transport’ costs for the academic, a spouse and up to 4 children. If hospitalised, an academic would be entitled to 6 months paid sick leave which could be extended for another 6 months.
Retirement age was increased from 65 to 70 and any one who retired as a Professor would be entitled to a pension equivalent to his/her final salary. Indeed even if the Professor retired before the retirement age of 70, he would still be entitled to the final salary pension provided he had served as a Professor for 15 years in a university. University staff and their spouses as well as up to 4 children under the age of 18 were entitled to health insurance. There are various other benefits in the agreement but these are mainly standard stuff like maternity and 26 days leave. What I find interesting is that while the section on pay was quite specific in what university staff were entitled to, as soon as you get to the other sections, everything turns to a ‘recommendation’. So for example it was recommended that the government spend N472bn on the universities in 2009, N498bn in 2010 and N549bn in 2011.
Somehow, the Federal Government was also supposed to fund the State Universities (at least recommended to) on a per student basis i.e. N3.7m per student in total from 2009 to 2011. Another recommendation was for the state and federal governments to spend a minimum of 26% of their budgets on education. Of this amount, at least 50% was to be allocated to universities. Bear in mind that this was a negotiation between ASUU and the FG – the primary and secondary school interests were not represented there but ASUU was effectively making a recommendation on how much they should get from the budget. In all this, there are 1.2m students in our universities while we need to find a way to get 10.5m children into school.
It was also recommended that the Education Tax Fund be changed to a Higher Education Fund i.e. solely for the universities, polytechnics and colleges of education. This would be hilarious if it wasn’t so scandalous – after taking 50% of the budget, the universities were to take 100% of the ETF as well. You couldn’t make it up but then, when you start negotiations from the premise that there is a critical mass of nation transforming scholars in our universities, this is not a surprise. I wonder if the mumu NUT who are threatening to go on strike in solidarity with ASUU know that ASUU don’t really give a toss about them.
Universities were also to access the Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF) for the training and development of their staff i.e. more money for ASUU and government was to grant universities duty-free importation rights for educational materials. Given that even our churches have been known to terribly abuse such waivers in the past, this is amusing to say the least. Where the agreement descends into outright farce is when it reaches the section on autonomy. Having demanded and obtained all the above things from the government, ASUU then proceeded to add insult to injury by asking that university autonomy and academic freedom should be ‘enhanced and protected’. Note that this agreement wasn’t exactly reached with smiles and good-natured banter – it came after a strike that eventually forced the government to the negotiating table. So ASUU were not only asking the government to give them as much money as they could demand with a straight face, they were asking to be left alone to spend it and run their affairs as they wish ranging from changing the laws impeding university independence to allowing them admit students as they saw fit. You want the government to look after you and your family by paying everything you want and you want the same government to grant you freedom and autonomy. Eh?
As I’ve said several times before – this dispute is all about pay and nothing else. The thing with recommendations is that they are just that; recommendations. You cant take someone to court for not following a recommendation. So it was up to the government to follow those parts of the agreement or not. But ASUU weren’t messing about with the parts that concerned them. The numbers were clearly specified which is why today they can say the government is owing them N92bn in earned allowances or whatever the figure is. It is also the same reason why the government feels it can throw N30bn at them and ask them to ‘manage’ it. Afterall its ASUU’s word against the government’s.
You hardly come across the word ‘student’ in the agreement at all. And there is nothing specific about infrastructure in there other than the large sums of money the government was supposed to give the universities. There are many people today making ignorant noises about government ‘honouring the agreement’ and even coming up with things that are not in said agreement as ‘ASUU’s demands’. There really isn't anything for anyone in here other than ASUU so personally I’d say, leave them to fight it out with government.
Who in Nigeria wont like free medical insurance for their family? This is why i get confused when the whole debate about education comes down to pay. Even if we had the best universities in the world, there will still be a case for paying our lecturers more. 99.9% of humans beings, when asked if they wanted more pay, will respond ‘Yes’. So why exactly is this the pillar on which the arguement always rests? You can also see the sinister side of ASUU in the draft amendment bill with the way they were eager to tightly regulate the private universities via the NUC to protect themselves… going as far as recommending up to 5 year jail terms with no option of fine for anyone who so much as uses his property for the operation of an unapproved university.
Be that as it may, I think the government should honour this agreement. It should pay every last penny. That is the only way it might learn a lesson for the future. How you can send a team of ex- academics to negotiate with a team of academics on your behalf is beyond me. But hey, I don’t know what went down in those days. Once this strike is over, prepare for the next one because as sure as night follows day, it will come. Ultimately this document shows the impossibility of reaching an ‘agreement’ after one party has forced a negotiation via hostage taking. There is absolutely no way in this life or the next we are going to have anything approaching education reform until we break out of this death spiral of strikes and pay deals. The conversation we need to have has not even begun at all. My suggestion will be that the government should just pay ASUU whatever it is it wants right now and then begin talks on university reform i.e. the lecturers need to be in class when negotiations start. That way, we can know what everyone really wants. [ |
Education › Re: ASUU Strike: A Lecturer Speaks by drered(m): 4:13pm On Oct 12, 2013 |
@prof femi. Came across this on facebook and I'll love to know your thoughts on this via facebook: THE PURPORTED FG-ASUU AGREEMENT!!! The reader is warned that this piece contains the implied opinion of the writer. The reader is also free to draw conclusions. Thanks to Qawiy Temitope for this excellent piece, I am much indebted.
ASUU Part Quatre: We Have An Agreement Before you complain that Peter Jackson’s Lord of The Rings only had 3 parts, I have 2 words for you – The Hobbit. First of all, shout out to the good man who dug up this agreement, scanned it and emailed it to me. As we say here in Blighty; you Sir, are the dog’s bollocks. Thank you. I think the first thing that struck me about this agreement is how strong ASUU are as a union. I wonder how other unions will feel if they see the kind of stuff ASUU managed to extract from government. Part of the reason for this, in my opinion, is immediately obvious when you look at the list of the people who negotiated for both sides. While the ASUU delegation was led by its President and senior members, the government side was led by Gamaliel Onosode and some other Professors and ex Pro-Chancellors. The highest ranking members of the negotiating team from the government side appear to be some civil servants who acted as observers’.
This is not to invalidate the agreement of course – the government clearly signed it so they should honour it. But when you look at the composition of people purportedly negotiating on behalf of the government, ASUU were already 1 nil up even before anything was signed. Does anyone know why things were done this way? Was it that relations between government and ASUU had broken down to the point where they couldn’t sit round a table and trash out the issues? Not even a minister? To the agreement proper – there were 4 main issues to be negotiated namely 1) Conditions of service [salaries] 2) Funding 3) University autonomy and freedom 4) ‘Other matters’.
Here are the highlights of the agreement as I saw them 1. ASUU asked for and got a special salary structure for themselves called Consolidated University Academic Salary Structure I(CONUASS). This CONUASS was further made up of 3 components – 1) CONUASS I [the previous one from 2007] 2) Consolidated Peculiar University Academic Allowances [CONPUAA] 3) Rent. The CONPUAA was apparently to capture all the other allowances that they wanted but not captured in the CONUASS. Stay with me. The reason why they were allowed this was because the committee agreed that ‘Nigerian academics represent the critical mass of scholars in the society’ and as a result of this they ‘deserved unique conditions that will motivate them [...] to attain greater efficiency’.
2. In exchange for this new pay, ASUU agreed to be of good behaviour and not do anything that disrupts the academic calendar to get whatever it wants i.e. no striking.
3. Next thing they did was to look at the countries where Nigerian academics frequently migrated to e.g Botswana, Ghana and other developed countries. Based on this they came up with a salary structure that would prevent this kind of brain drain. They called this Table 1. The highest salary anyone could earn based on this table was N7.5m per annum. But ASUU then seemingly looked at the government’s condition and took pity on them because the government didn’t have a lot of money and then gave them some sort of ‘discount’. This gave birth to Table 2 in which the highest possible salary was N6m. The cynic in me thinks this was simply a clever negotiating tactic but I wasn’t there.
4. As far as I am aware from all of ASUU’s statements since the strike began, the government has complied with this CONUASS salary structure. Indeed it will be difficult for the government to not pay them the salary they agreed to. It is the next bit that seems to have caused all the problems and it’s easy to see why. Something called Earned Academic Allowances was also agreed to by both parties. In essence, this was supposed to be a kind of piece-rate payment where ASUU members as academic staff were paid a fixed amount for each unit of work they did. So for supervising postgraduate students, a Professor was to be paid N25,000 per student while a Lecturer 1 and Senior Lecturer were to be paid N15,000 and N20,000 per student respectively.
For Teaching Practice/Industrial Supervision/Field Trips, a Professor was entitled to N100,000 per annum. Further, if a Professor did more than one field trip in a year, he would be paid separately for each one. Even though this money was for field trips, such an academic staff would be entitled to mileage and overnight allowance in line with government regulations. It’s unclear why, after being paid N100,000 for a field trip, the same person will then be entitled to mileage and overnight allowance. What is the definition of ‘field trip’ I wonder?
There was also Honoraria for helping to conduct exams internally or externally ranging from N45,000 for Master’s to N105,000 for Doctorate. For moderating external undergraduate or postgraduate exams, there was a separate honoraria ranging from N60,000 for 50 undergraduate students to N80,000 for more than 10 postgraduate students. To encourage young academics to ‘further’, postgraduate study grants were to be given – N350,000 per session (up to a maximum of 2 sessions) for a science based masters and N500,000 per session (up to a maximum of 4 sessions) for a science based doctorate. The figures were N250,000 and N350,000 respectively for non science studies. I am not too familiar with the intricacies of academia but another N200,000 was to be paid to external assessors for the position of Reader and Professor. Call duty and clinical hazard allowances were to be paid to those who qualified to them per existing government regulations. It is unclear what a Responsibility Allowance is (at least to me) but a Vice Chancellor and Librarian were entitled to N750,000 per annum for this allowance while ‘all other officers’ were entitled to N150,000. Excess Workload Allowance was to be paid per hour to teaching staff ranging from N2,000 per hour for a Graduate Assistant to N3,500 per hour for a Professor.
You can see the problem with these allowances – there is no way for the government to know how much they will cost in advance. They could cost N10bn or they could cost N100bn. Lecturers would simply submit the bills and the government would have to cough up the money. You can also see that ASUU played a clever hand by giving the government a ‘discount’ on the base salaries while loading up with all sorts of allowances elsewhere. For a lecturer earning say N3m per annum, it wonttake much for he/she to earn an extra say 50% of that salary through all these allowances. The government isn’t there on the campus so it will simply get the bill to pay. And I have not even mentioned corruption.
5. There were other non-salary benefits in the agreement as well. Each academic staff was entitled to a car loan equivalent to his/her annual salary charged at 2% for administrative cost (stop laughing). They were also entitled to a car refurbishment loan for those who wanted to refurbish their old cars, again charged at 2%. At least with a car loan you get to see the new car if you want to, but refurbishment? That’s just money in the bush. For housing loans, each academic was entitled to 8 times his/her annual salary to buy a house. After 6 years service, an academic would be entitled to a sabbatical leave. If this sabbatical was abroad, the university would pay the ‘transport’ costs for the academic, a spouse and up to 4 children. If hospitalised, an academic would be entitled to 6 months paid sick leave which could be extended for another 6 months.
Retirement age was increased from 65 to 70 and any one who retired as a Professor would be entitled to a pension equivalent to his/her final salary. Indeed even if the Professor retired before the retirement age of 70, he would still be entitled to the final salary pension provided he had served as a Professor for 15 years in a university. University staff and their spouses as well as up to 4 children under the age of 18 were entitled to health insurance. There are various other benefits in the agreement but these are mainly standard stuff like maternity and 26 days leave. What I find interesting is that while the section on pay was quite specific in what university staff were entitled to, as soon as you get to the other sections, everything turns to a ‘recommendation’. So for example it was recommended that the government spend N472bn on the universities in 2009, N498bn in 2010 and N549bn in 2011.
Somehow, the Federal Government was also supposed to fund the State Universities (at least recommended to) on a per student basis i.e. N3.7m per student in total from 2009 to 2011. Another recommendation was for the state and federal governments to spend a minimum of 26% of their budgets on education. Of this amount, at least 50% was to be allocated to universities. Bear in mind that this was a negotiation between ASUU and the FG – the primary and secondary school interests were not represented there but ASUU was effectively making a recommendation on how much they should get from the budget. In all this, there are 1.2m students in our universities while we need to find a way to get 10.5m children into school.
It was also recommended that the Education Tax Fund be changed to a Higher Education Fund i.e. solely for the universities, polytechnics and colleges of education. This would be hilarious if it wasn’t so scandalous – after taking 50% of the budget, the universities were to take 100% of the ETF as well. You couldn’t make it up but then, when you start negotiations from the premise that there is a critical mass of nation transforming scholars in our universities, this is not a surprise. I wonder if the mumu NUT who are threatening to go on strike in solidarity with ASUU know that ASUU don’t really give a toss about them.
Universities were also to access the Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF) for the training and development of their staff i.e. more money for ASUU and government was to grant universities duty-free importation rights for educational materials. Given that even our churches have been known to terribly abuse such waivers in the past, this is amusing to say the least. Where the agreement descends into outright farce is when it reaches the section on autonomy. Having demanded and obtained all the above things from the government, ASUU then proceeded to add insult to injury by asking that university autonomy and academic freedom should be ‘enhanced and protected’. Note that this agreement wasn’t exactly reached with smiles and good-natured banter – it came after a strike that eventually forced the government to the negotiating table. So ASUU were not only asking the government to give them as much money as they could demand with a straight face, they were asking to be left alone to spend it and run their affairs as they wish ranging from changing the laws impeding university independence to allowing them admit students as they saw fit. You want the government to look after you and your family by paying everything you want and you want the same government to grant you freedom and autonomy. Eh?
As I’ve said several times before – this dispute is all about pay and nothing else. The thing with recommendations is that they are just that; recommendations. You cant take someone to court for not following a recommendation. So it was up to the government to follow those parts of the agreement or not. But ASUU weren’t messing about with the parts that concerned them. The numbers were clearly specified which is why today they can say the government is owing them N92bn in earned allowances or whatever the figure is. It is also the same reason why the government feels it can throw N30bn at them and ask them to ‘manage’ it. Afterall its ASUU’s word against the government’s.
You hardly come across the word ‘student’ in the agreement at all. And there is nothing specific about infrastructure in there other than the large sums of money the government was supposed to give the universities. There are many people today making ignorant noises about government ‘honouring the agreement’ and even coming up with things that are not in said agreement as ‘ASUU’s demands’. There really isn't anything for anyone in here other than ASUU so personally I’d say, leave them to fight it out with government.
Who in Nigeria wont like free medical insurance for their family? This is why i get confused when the whole debate about education comes down to pay. Even if we had the best universities in the world, there will still be a case for paying our lecturers more. 99.9% of humans beings, when asked if they wanted more pay, will respond ‘Yes’. So why exactly is this the pillar on which the arguement always rests? You can also see the sinister side of ASUU in the draft amendment bill with the way they were eager to tightly regulate the private universities via the NUC to protect themselves… going as far as recommending up to 5 year jail terms with no option of fine for anyone who so much as uses his property for the operation of an unapproved university.
Be that as it may, I think the government should honour this agreement. It should pay every last penny. That is the only way it might learn a lesson for the future. How you can send a team of ex- academics to negotiate with a team of academics on your behalf is beyond me. But hey, I don’t know what went down in those days. Once this strike is over, prepare for the next one because as sure as night follows day, it will come. Ultimately this document shows the impossibility of reaching an ‘agreement’ after one party has forced a negotiation via hostage taking. There is absolutely no way in this life or the next we are going to have anything approaching education reform until we break out of this death spiral of strikes and pay deals. The conversation we need to have has not even begun at all. My suggestion will be that the government should just pay ASUU whatever it is it wants right now and then begin talks on university reform i.e. the lecturers need to be in class when negotiations start. That way, we can know what everyone really wants. [ |
Education › Re: ASUU Strike: A Lecturer Speaks by drered(m): 6:06pm On Oct 11, 2013 |
Idrismusty97: Here is your ranking prof.http://www.4icu.org/ng/ Unilorin came 5th and i assured you prof,The longer the strike progresses,unilorin will rise to the top in Nigeria and even african. Different organisations churning out lists and rankings. Webometric ranked universities based on web hits and used that as a yardstick to determine the top universities in Nigeria. What is their(4icu) criteria for ranking? Do they have personnel on ground to actually go to these universities and check out their facilities/infrastructure? Do they have access to staff list and all that?.. Anyone can open a site/blog and make a list so give us something credible we can work with.. |
Education › Re: ASUU Strike: A Lecturer Speaks by drered(m): 5:55pm On Oct 11, 2013 |
lockedOut: We can all sit here and talk about how bad the federal government is but now to the ASUU case, if the federal government shold accede to the demands of ASUU they should also include a performance clause into what ever MOU they sign, put correct checks and balances in place to curtail the obvious excesses of the NIgerian lecturers. Setup a committee/board that will look into cases of molestation of students and also lecturers who feel aggrieved with the system. I will spare the readers some of these excesses but we all know them. That way a lecturer knows he is not above the LAW since in most cases there are no laws guarding the lecturers
TO the issue at and and a resolution to the problem. I will suggest the lecturers be ready for a pay cut (as it seems the federal government cannot really fund education in its entirety which is quite obvious as there are many lingering problems that facing education alone will be catalytic on the environment. As harsh as this may sound, parents must begin to bear some cost of education. We can have a tier structural system whereby a student pays 50 40 30 and 20 percent of his/her schools from year one to the finals. Also universities can do away with some support staffs in exchange for students doing this roles and in turn using their salaries to pay for their school fees and also have something to save for themselves.
Also the federal government can set-up a bank or set-up a framework whereby students can access interest free loans to pay for their tuition fees, in exchange that the bank will be with the original copy their certificates. It is obvious the federal government cannot fully pay for the cost of education in the country and the best way to go about this is having a tiered structured paying system (whichever way it pleases everyone). Private individuals can be brought in to fund varsities with the option of being part owners and setting up a framework whereby the part owners will get their money over a stretch of time. Some of these ideas are quite ambiguous right now but I will expatiate later if clarifications are needed.
There are many other solutions at hand that can help reduce the incessant ASUU strike. I believe our think within the box attitude is what is still making ASUU go on strike while we agree that the sum required to resuscitate the ailing Nigerian educational system is gargantuan a fit all solution exists though everyone will have to bare the cost of this solution. Both the parents, the federal goverment and the lecturers themselves. ... . !!!! |
Education › Re: ASUU Strike: A Lecturer Speaks by drered(m): 5:34pm On Oct 11, 2013 |
Prof. First I gotta commend your efforts. I've read through most of the questions and your reply here and I feel your answers have been objective enough. However I still feel and strongly believe that this wasn't the best course of action and ultimately ASUU won't get all of their demands met because of the kind of government we have.
Academicians/Lecturers are supposed to be intellectuals and I feel a plan/strategy other than an indefinite strike should have surfaced, but hey they passed through the same system right?. Where I feel ASUU went terribly wrong is not carrying the students along. Before your explanation, honestly I wasn't even taking sides. I was mad at both ASUU and the FG. Now if ASUU/Lecturers had taken us along and given us proper education on why the strike action is imperative like you have outlined we would have gone into this together and it would have been ASUU/The students vs The FG. Sir, power has always and will always belong to the people. Nothing beats people with a strong resolve especially the youths. But ASUU failed woefully and the people you are "fighting" for have become tools strongly condemning your effort firstly cus it affects them directly and they don't explicitly see why you striking in the first place and most importantly cuz of the government propaganda. You have to understand that one thing our government excels well is in propaganda and since we were never united in the first place the government saw this and exploited it. I know of lecturers that are actually intellectual, think outside the box and don't see themselves as demi gods, Sadly most of them are not interested in holding union posts, the ones that do don't fight intellectual battles but give what has always been obtained "strike actions". Same goes for NANS, there is a rumour making rounds that the NANS president was silenced with tens of millions by "the govt" and I have cause to believe this because what sane student union wouldn't have organised mass protests? The first option to the resolution of a crisis is never sensible dialogue and If the only thing govt. understand is protest, rallies, civil demonstration/disobedience then we have to give it to them. Honestly just 2 weeks of demonstrations in strategic locations en masse in the 36 states at the beginning of this wouldn't lead to the current impasse we are facing.. This is where ASUU has always gotten it wrong. NANS president said he wrote a letter to both Gov. Suswam and Dr. Nasir fagge. The former replied but the ASUU team didn't even bother to reply. Why? He feels we are "inferior", not useful, we don't matter? But he wants the students to have is back/understand? Really?.. |
Education › Re: University Of Ibadan Student (graduate/undergraduate)Chat Room by drered(m): 2:13pm On Oct 04, 2013 |
adetaiwo157: to all my pansities in d aus.....i hail una Right back at you. |
Education › Re: University Of Ibadan Student (graduate/undergraduate)Chat Room by drered(m): 8:31pm On Oct 03, 2013 |
Messilo: Of greatest ife! great! Oau is the baba in term of achiteture great ife, in term of education oau na baba!  |
Education › Re: University Of Ibadan Student (graduate/undergraduate)Chat Room by drered(m): 8:02pm On Oct 03, 2013 |
Bolushalom: Hello everyone I am law student, an idiate/agbowoite :-) Hey ma'am. Welcome  |
Education › Re: University Of Ibadan Student (graduate/undergraduate)Chat Room by drered(m): 8:01pm On Oct 03, 2013 |
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Education › Re: University Of Ibadan Student (graduate/undergraduate)Chat Room by drered(m): 7:54pm On Oct 03, 2013 |
Fynestboi: no mind me those pics are early last yr view u can help with the latest ones  Lol. I will when i get the chance to. |
Education › Re: University Of Ibadan Student (graduate/undergraduate)Chat Room by drered(m): 7:47pm On Oct 03, 2013 |
Greatest Amina way-ites!?  |
Education › Re: University Of Ibadan Student (graduate/undergraduate)Chat Room by drered(m): 7:10pm On Oct 03, 2013 |
thareta: There are a few gurls on this thread y? Finished frm the same department last year. Btwn where are the queenites in da house?! Thought you guys are called "queens" not "queenites"? |
Education › Re: University Of Ibadan Student (graduate/undergraduate)Chat Room by drered(m): 7:09pm On Oct 03, 2013 |
Greatst UItes!
@ op. Nice job bringing this up. But those pictures don't do us justice though. They are rather old and lots of changes have taken place even during the ASUU strike.. Good job anyways. Even thought about doing this earlier.. |
Romance › Re: What Could Have Happened To Her?? by drered(m): 9:36am On Oct 03, 2013 |
Shit happens, things change, people move on. |
Romance › Re: If Genders Were Switched, What Would The Opposite Sex Be Most Surprised About? by drered(op): 9:30am On Oct 03, 2013 |
Hormones!! Fight against urges to stick it in cuz for ladies its more like a surrender but for guys its more like a fight with themselves... |
Romance › If Genders Were Switched, What Would The Opposite Sex Be Most Surprised About? by drered(op): 9:00am On Oct 03, 2013 |
Yeah, so if guys became girls and girls became guys what do you think the other gender would be most surprised about.?
I'd go with the constant boners/hard-ons/erections even when there is nothing remotely arousing.. Like when you just get up from bed, when you eating or just taking a casual stroll!.. |
Education › Re: ASUU: FG Stops Lecturers’ Salary (no Work, No Pay) by drered(m): 8:37am On Oct 03, 2013 |
It might get to a point, after all the resources of the lecturers have been depleted due to witholding their salaries that they'll cave in but they won't even have students to teach anymore. |
Education › Re: Industrial Training Fund (ITF) Pays Students SIWES Allowance by drered(m): 1:35am On Sep 27, 2013 |
Err. Does this apply to students of all universities?. Cuz most students don't even know about this and are usually payed a token where they do their industrial training and nothing more.. |
Education › Re: NUT Threatens To Shut Down Education Sector In Solidarity With ASUU by drered(m): 1:27am On Sep 27, 2013 |
Since the first option to resolution in my country is never sensible dialogue then this is what is has to be. Just hope like NANS this isn't an empty threat. When Nigerians, both old and young take to the streets and there are civil demonstrations then we will understand that POWER belongs to the PEOPLE. |
Education › Re: Any Different Btw State And Federal University ? by drered(m): 1:16am On Sep 27, 2013 |
LOL
Loads of differences. For starters, a federal university as the name implies is the responsibility of the federal government and is generally better funded than state universities that are responsibilities of the various states they are located. Also admission into a fed uni is much more competitive than a state uni. |
Education › Re: Intimate Harassment In LASU! Pls Help! by drered(m): 9:48am On Sep 26, 2013*. Modified: 10:53am On Sep 26, 2013 |
I still don't get the logic behind victimising students when there are so many ways a lecturer can get comfort if he so desires. If his libido is on the high side there is a wife and if variety is his thing there are ladies that get PAID to take care of that. I'd suggest that the law students should get hard evidence!. You are law students for pete's sake!. A video pen could do the trick or if there's a paper trail that could help too. |
Family › Re: ....................... by drered(m): 10:02pm On Sep 18, 2013 |
[color=#770077][/color] Simple. You don't. |
Romance › Re: Can We Totally Get Over First Love Memories,? by drered(m): 12:02pm On Sep 12, 2013 |
There's nothing like the first time. I get "limbo" when i get flashbacks every once in a while. Just hope she's happy. |
Romance › Re: The 150 Rule Of Gentleman by drered(m): 11:47am On Sep 12, 2013 |
bobolekepee: 7 - If she can’t sleep, read her a bedtime story. r.  |
Education › Re: ASUU Strike: Enough Is Enough by drered(m): 12:13pm On Sep 07, 2013 |
In a country where the first option to resolution is never peaceful dialogue the only option left in the hands of a nigerian student is to take is destiny into his own hands and do all he can to be heard. Sitting at home waiting on a government that has repeatedly failed their people and mortgaging our futures to lecturers that are supposed to be intellectuals won't do any of us good. Civil disturbance, demonstration and un-rest as rash as it may sound is what applies in Nigeria. NANS has a body has failed for letting this strike linger on to over 60 days without any visible effort to end this strike.. The only way I see this being resolved soonest is students demonstrating en masse to #endasuustrike. I'm talking mobilization of crowds similar to that of #occupynigeria in strategic locations that will affect the government and make both citizen/non-citizens of Nigeria feel the pain we feeling right now. |
Health › Re: Health Workers Call Off Strike by drered(m): 10:21am On Aug 28, 2013 |
The health workers had been provoked by some recent decisions taken by the Federal Government which favours doctors above other health professionals. Government is to be blamed for the issues causing this strike. For some strange reasons, the minister of health, who is a doctor, sent a circular to teaching hospitals that members of other professions cannot become consultants. They are not saying they want to become consultant doctors. How can anybody say a pharmacist cannot be a consultant pharmacist? It is a cadre recognised across the world. "How do we explain a situation where five directors out of six professional directorates in the Federal Ministry of Health are doctors whereas other professional groups do not have a single director representing their interest?
"It is a shame that we have a ministry of doctors not of health. More than any other time, we have experienced unlawful appointments of doctors without input from other sectors. Government encourages a system in health care that fosters an agenda of discriminatory privileges. |
Education › Re: The medical students and aspirants thread by drered(m): 5:00pm On Aug 24, 2013 |
Mcslize: [color=black]TEST YOUR INTELLIGENT QUOTIENT BY CLICKING THE BELOW LINK[/color]
http://begent.org/intelquiz.htm
MAKE SURE YOU POST YOUR SCORE HERE. DO NOT LIE ABOUT YOUR SCORE. IF YOU SCORE JUST 1 MAKE SURE U POST IT HEERE 11 |
Education › Re: The medical students and aspirants thread by drered(m): 4:57pm On Aug 24, 2013 |
Modified |
Education › Re: The medical students and aspirants thread by drered(m): 4:39pm On Aug 24, 2013 |
drealdoc89: am in delsu. 1)I wanted to know if u had done cns pharmacology. 2)or if u r doin it presently nd hw far u hav gone. 3)to get someone i cn discuss it wit online 4rm anoda skul,mayb on fb or 2go. Yeah I have, but that was in 300L though. University of Ibadan. You need clarification on it? |