Alleged plan to return the four newly-created universities of education to their former colleges of education status is causing ripples among stakeholders, CHARLES ABAH and ADE AKANBI report
From the Adeyemi Federal University of Education, Ondo, Ondo State; Alvan Ikoku University of Education, Owerri, Imo State; Federal College of Education, Zaria; and the Federal University of Education, Kano, there was agitation bordering on the same issue last week.
The agitators were members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities and the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities. Their mission was similar: the protesters were kicking against the Federal Government’s alleged plan to reverse the upgrading of the institutions.
The former President Goodluck Jonathan, at the twilight of his administration, had upgraded these colleges of education to universities.
Curiously, till date, there has not been a statement from any government quarters confirming or denying the move. From the National Universities Commission, the body statutorily saddled with the responsibility of overseeing the nation’s universities and the Federal Ministry of Education, mum is the word on their lips.
At least as of Monday, no one had officially talked about the planned downgrade, yet these schools have not known peace in the past few days. When contacted, the National Universities Commission’s Head of Public Relations, Ibrahim Yakassai, only referred one of our correspondents to the FME.
The ministry’s Spokesman, Mr. Olu Lipede, who initially promised to get back to one of our correspondents, did not eventually respond to the several calls made to his telephone.
Lipede had earlier promised to find out the “true position of things” from his superiors, but he never did that as of the time of going to the press by 8pm.
However, for the protesting workers, there is no smoke without fire.
According to them, the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari has concluded arrangement to downgrade the universities in line with its plot to restructure the nation’s education sector.
Speaking on the development, the AFUE Joint Non-Teaching Staff Action Committee Chairman, Femi Lademikan, said the workers of the institution had cause to protest against the plan.
Lademikan said, “We want our university to remain. We are appealing to the government through this peaceful demonstration that what we want is our university status.
“We want to tell President Buhari that we have everything required to make this institution a university. We have the people, resources and everything to take to maintain this school. We have the structure and the enabling environment, just as we are peaceful and cooperative.
“Mr. President must not listen to people who don’t love him, sycophants and those enemies of progress.”
The FUEK-ASUU Chairman, Dr. Abubakar Haruna, laid the blame on the doorsteps of the former provosts of the colleges. According to him, the former administrators are conniving with some powerful persons in government to persuade the President to return the institutions to their former status.
Haruna added, “We feel that the President must have been misinformed on the objectives for which the colleges were upgraded. The damage this decision would do to host communities is better imagined.
“The plot to revert this development, in our opinion, is unpatriotic, counter-productive, obnoxious and retrogressive. As you may be aware, NCE used to be the minimum teaching qualification after the phasing out of the Grade II Teacher Certificate in Nigeria.
“The nation has reached a stage when the university degree in education would become the minimum qualification for teaching in the national teacher education policy.”
However, a retired professor of Political Science, Kayode Soremekun, disagrees with Lademikan and Haruna.
Soremekun, who said that he would support the policy somersault, noted that these newly upgraded schools did not have the quality workers to mount the programmes.
“Let them not deceive anybody. They will claim to have the right environment and workers but when you go there, it will be a different thing on the ground.
“Well, they do not have enough faculties to run these universities. I tell you many of them do not have the staff. Generally, there is a chronic shortage of human resource in the nation’s university system. To that extent, they are going to dip into the same pool, which is not increasing anywhere. In this regard, I shall support the policy change considering the paucity of the work force.”
The former Obafemi Awolowo University lecturer also noted that the Jonathan administration might have upgraded these institutions out of desperation to score some cheap political points.
He explained, “Jonathan might have done what he did then for political reasons, especially to gain electoral victory. He was ready to do anything then to gain some mileages politically. If one even checks the spread of the schools, one would see that it had a touch of geographical intent. In any case, you cannot divorce anything from politics.”
Meanwhile, ASUU at AFUE has warned in a statement that the planned reversal will elicit crisis in the university.
In the statement by its Public Relations Officer, Olaolu Olaniyan, the union, therefore, urged the Federal Government not to take such an action.
According to the union, the planned reversal will amount to backwardness for the institution.
The statement read, “It is utter dismay and outright displeasure, the disturbing rumour making the rounds about the purported reversal of the long-awaited and hard-earned university status of Adeyemi Federal University of Education and three other newly-upgraded universities of education. We want to express our unequivocal rejection of such a reversal, which is only capable of creating avoidable tension in the new university community and the host community by extension.
“It is worthy of note that the university has been in the vanguard of turning out well trained teachers for the Nigerian education system for an upward of five decades. The upgrading of the institution into a full-fledged university was premised on several factors, chiefly, the high quality of members of the academic staff who have worked assiduously over the years to produce an array of well-trained teachers for the primary and secondary school components of the Nigerian education system. The institution also runs postgraduate diploma in education programme.
“We firmly subscribe to the belief that the Federal Government’s decision to upgrade the institution into a full-fledged university is a step in the right direction to revamp the Nigerian education system, which is at an all-time low at present. Production of well-trained teachers with bachelor’s degree, master’s degree and doctoral degree in education would go a long way to salvage the ailing Nigerian education system.
“While we appreciate the quagmire into which the Nigerian economy has been plunged, it is not a sufficient reason, as retrogressive elements adduced, to truncate the implementation of the university status of the institution, which would have profound positive impact on educational development in Nigeria in the proximate future. It is therefore in the light of the foregoing that the union rejects in absolute terms any attempt to truncate the upgrading of the institution to a full fledge university status.”
The students too did not shy away from the agitation. According to the President, Student Union Government of the AFUE, Mr. Isiaka Kamarudeen, they will continue to kick against any regressive action against the institution.
To support their teachers and other members of staff, Kamarudeen said the students were ready to fight what he described as injustice against the institution.
Meanwhile, the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, told one of our correspondents that he was not aware of any plan to return the schools to their former status.
