Enough is enough: Student carry placards as they sit on a highway to protest against the suspension of academic activities in their respective varsities. - AFP
LECTURERS in Nigeria have come under mounting pressure to call off a lengthy higher education strike that has put university courses on hold for months, leaving hundreds of thousands of students in limbo.
Members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) walked out in July over claims that the government had failed to implement a 2009 agreement to improve their welfare and upgrade facilities on state-run campuses.
The strike, the latest by lecturers in recent years, initially enjoyed public support. But sympathy turned to anger and protests from students as talks ended in stalemate.
Like many things in Nigeria, university education is polarised between the country’s minority of the super-rich and influential, who are able to afford to educate their children privately, and the majority who are either of the working class or poor.
There are currently about 1.2 million students in public and private universities in Nigeria, according to the National Universities Commission. Privately-run institutions are less affected by the walk-out.
Most people have to rely on the over-burdened and under-funded public sector, where even the most senior university professor earns about US$2,000 (RM6,300) a month and teachers rank among the lowest-paid civil servants.
“How I wished my father had enough money to send me to a private university,” said Enitan Alonge, whose four-year engineering course at the University of Lagos was due to finish in September.
“I would have long graduated and be saved from the incessant strikes that have become the lot of public universities in this country,” said the 21-year-old.
Alonge said she had some sympathy for lecturers but the strike was having a devastating effect on students and had robbed them of a whole semester of study.
“We appeal to ASUU to suspend the strike so that we can go back to school. We have stayed at home for too long,” said Alonge.
There are signs that students could get their wish, as Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan personally took charge of negotiations last week to break the deadlock.
Labour Minister Emeka Wogu said he was “optimistic” the strike would be called off, asserting that the ASUU were “very happy” with the meeting.
“We believe the presidential intervention has resolved the matter,” he said.
Alonge, meanwhile, said she had enrolled for a computer course while 17-year-old John Alagbe, a law undergraduate in the northern city of Kano said he had learnt how to cut hair during the enforced lay-off.
“I took a hair-styling course for two weeks, after which I set up my own shop where I am now making some money.
“The little savings I make from the shop will supplement whatever my parents give me when I return to campus,” he said.
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