ASUU offers practical solutions to curb decay in education, health sectors

*The academic union maintains rather than attending to the rot within the education sector in Nigeria, policymakers are busy feeding Nigerians with lies, and advising academics to take to farming

Emmanuel Akosile | ConsumerConnect

In view of the multifarious challenges troubling the major sectors of the country’s economy in recent times, and for Nigeria’s education sector in particular to receive the desired facelift soon, a ban must be placed on the children of public office holders seeking foreign education.

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Akure Zone, which made the submission in statement Sunday, November 22, 2020, claimed the measure would help to checkmate the festering rot in the educational sector in Nigeria.

ASUU’s submissions were contained in a statement by Prof. Olu Olufayo, Zonal Coordinator, and Dr. Olayinka Awopetu, ASUU Branch Chairman at the Federal University of Technology (FUTA), Akure, Ondo State capital.

The academic union equally urged decisive measures to stop the political class and their dependents from seeking medical intervention outside the shores of the country.

According to the ASUU, such policies will help to reposition the failing nation’s educational and health sectors.

It stressed that the political class were not committed to ending the ongoing ASUU strike since they are not directly affected.

The statement noted: “Until we domesticate two very important practices as laws in Nigeria, we may not get out of this doldrums -first, an act to compel all public office holders and government appointees to have their wards educated in Nigeria Public schools from primary to tertiary level.

“Second, an act to compel all political office holders, appointees and their dependents prohibiting them from seeking medical intervention outside Nigeria.”

The academics also submitted that the union has been on strike for the past eight months over issues, which have been ignored by successive governments in the country, saying the deplorable situation of Universities has grown from bad to worse.

ASUU lamented what it described as dilapidated lecture rooms, deplorable hostels for students, lack of funds for capital projects across the public universities in the country.

For the past three decades, the University system has suffered brain drain arising from poor capital and human resource development, said the statement.

Rather than attending to the rot within the education sector, the union contended that policymakers were busy feeding Nigerians with lies, and advising academics to take to farming.