By IPS Correspondents
LAGOS, Jul 10 2001 (IPS)

More than 200,000 students of Nigeria’s 37 Universities are scheduled to resume studies this week following the end of a three-month strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).

But the excitement surrounding the opening of the universities may be short lived unless government accedes to the demands of two other unions — the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) and the Non-Academic Staff Union (NASU) — in the universities.

The two unions had tacitly supported ASUU when it called out its members on Apr 2 to protest against the government of President Olusegun Obasanjo’s “reneging on” an agreement on a fresh welfare package for its members.

Up to six ASUU strikes occurred in the past six years, resulting in the loss of some 10 billion Naira (about 100 million US dollars). The longest one, in 1996, lasted seven months.

The strikes also have affected the quality of education in Nigeria. Not only are ‘university graduates poorly trained and unproductive on the job, but also are having “shortcomings particularly in oral and written communication and in applied technical skills”, says a recent report by the World Bank and the Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research.

The report, titled ‘Labour Market Prospects of University Graduates in Nigeria’, states that more than 50,000 graduates are churned out annually from Nigeria’s universities, costing an estimated 4,500 US dollars to produce each student.

While graduates complain of high levels of unemployment, “employers complain that graduates are poorly prepared for work”, says the report.

The employers “believe that academic standards have fallen considerably over the past decade and that a university degree is no longer a guarantee of communication skills or technical competence”.

The report says that because education has been allocated a ‘declining share of GNP (gross domestic product) over the past two decades, falling from 6.4 per cent in 1980 to 0.7 per cent in 1997, there has been “persistent unrest on campuses and the rise in anti-social behaviour”.

In a bid to improve the situation, the government announced a 22 per cent salary increase for all the university staff last week. It also agreed to improve the current low level of funding to Universities. All the institutions are expected to submit a three-year development plan to the Federal Ministry of Education in Abuja, the administrative capital of Nigeria, soon.

The government also agreed to meet the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural organisation (UNESCO) target of allocating 26 per cent of the national budget to education within three years, according to ASUU President Oladipo Fashina.

The two unions — SSANU and NASU — have demanded that the government apply the same reconstructed salary structure to the other unions.

“If by Friday, the 20th of July 2001, the existing abnormalities are not rectified, we would be left with no option than to resume our suspended strike action in the universities”, said a communique by the two unions.

A strike by the senior staff of the universities, which include bursars and registrars, will not stop academic work but impede the administration on the campuses and examinations due in less than three months.

SSANU President Sam Piwuna stressed that the “roles (played in Universities) are complimentary…it’s like a tripod, each leg is important. We have professionals who don’t have to be lecturers, everyone in the system is important and if you don’t treat them differently then you are bound to have trouble”.

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