The number one problem ASUU has with the Federal Government is that of funding. Education in Nigeria is greatly underfunded and this is responsible for the many woes befalling the country today.

What stands as an eternal truth is that the negative implication of underfunding education anywhere in the world is monumentally disastrous. Why? Because thinking of societal development or progress without adequate attention to education is like pouring water in a basket.

 Of particular importance is the funding of research in higher institutions. Studies prove that adequate funding of education at the tertiary level leads to innovations-innovations lead to employment and consequently increase in wages and higher standard of living. Any government therefore that claims to be working towards the betterment of the lives of the citizens without paying serious attention to the development of education cannot be said to be serious.

The high cost of funding education and its overall significance in national development poses a serious question-Who should fund education? Is it the government, individuals or industries? Should the government pay for the education of citizens and collect the money back when students graduate and start working? Should individuals pay for their education? Or should industries fund the education of people that will ultimately be employed by them?

The options should be considered properly. If government is solely responsible for the funding of education, what would be the cost? Will the government be able to afford the cost? Then the issue of the quality of education offered freely to citizens should also be considered. Will the students, upon graduation be able to compete with their counterparts in other parts of the world? The trend in Nigeria has been for government at all levels to promise citizens free education without caring about the quality of education supposedly offered. The result has been a consistent churning out of over a million graduates annually with a majority being largely unemployable in the global labour market.

Should individuals fund their education? The option again must be considered. Given the huge amount education costs, would citizens be able to afford it? In a country like Nigeria where the minimum wage is a paltry sum of 18,000 naira, how can parents possibly afford to comfortably send their children to school to acquire the necessary skills that will ensure a better life?

The often embraced option will be to ignore school with the lame excuse that making money has nothing to do with formal education. The effect is always the same. Low level of or no education at all; low productivity; low income; low standard of living and ultimately low quality of life.

Should industries pay for education of citizens as is the practice in China, Brazil, and India etc? Given the fact that the same industries will employ the students when they graduate? That would be a viable option in a country where there are thriving industries.

In Nigeria, apart from oil, the only other industry is politics, an industry run by lazy and unserious minded people bereft of developmental ideas. This again is another indication of the fact that our universities do not have the capacity to train citizens to be innovative and productive.

Education funding all over the world comes from different sources the major one being public revenue from taxation. In most western countries, education, especially at the tertiary level is neither free nor cheap. In the UK for example, the vast majority of universities are government financed. In spite of that, tuition fees are in some cases as high as 9,000 pounds a session. In 2012, the Russell Group, representing 24 of the UK's leading universities including Oxford and Cambridge pleaded for more funding from the government in the face of millions of pounds pumped into research and higher education by other countries.

On August 1, 2013, 165 university presidents and chancellors in the United States demanded more funding from the government. Yet tuition fees for state universities are about 20,770 dollars a year. The fees are higher in private universities. Even Community Colleges that are cheaper charge about 2,527 dollars, over 370.000 naira a year!

The call by university administrators in western countries where tuition fees are high is a pointer to one fact: The cost of acquiring quality tertiary education (or any form of education) is so high that governments, individuals and industries alone cannot bear the cost. It must be seen as a societal obligation of which the government should play the leading role.

The call by British and American university administrators for more funding is understandable. Over the last two decades, China, Singapore and South Korea have dramatically increased their investments in research and higher education. China alone spends about 250 billion dollars a year on education. The result is a booming economy that is almost overtaking the world, threatening even European and American economies.

Back home, the story is much different. While UNESCO recommends 26% of national budgets on education, only 8.7% of our 2013 budget was allocated to education-about 426.53 billion naira.A huge sum of money to some. The sharing formula of education budget is 40%- tertiary, 30%- secondary and 30% -primary. This means that about 170 billion naira was supposed to go tertiary education.

Still a huge amount of money to some. But how will the 170 billion be utilized? 80% will go for salaries, 18% for running cost including the purchase of diesel and petrol for generators. Then 2% will be left for research and development, A joke of the century.

 More irritating is the fact that the 2% will also likely be swallowed by bureaucracy as the Federal Ministry of Education in Nigeria alone has about 22 specialised agencies! ETF, PTF, TETFUND and all kinds of unnecessary agencies doing God knows what. In this scenario, it is easy to understand why Nigerian lecturers can hardly break fallow grounds in the academic fields.

Investing in education always yields tremendous benefits. A World Bank report in 2012 showed that Ghana allocated 31% of her budget on education, South Africa-25.8%, Uganda-27%, Cote D'Ivoire- 30% and Nigeria 8.43%.In the same year, it was reported that there were about 71,000 Nigerian Students in Ghanaian universities paying about 55 billion naira as tuition fees, a testimony to the fact that investment in education attracts patronage from everywhere.

In my assessment, Nigerian politicians who are mostly corrupt do not have the slightest idea of what it takes to move a nation forward. The "HONOURABLE" Minister of Information, Labaran Maku, was quoted as saying the Nigerian economy would crash if ASUU's demands were met. Even the Minister of Finance with so much experience and education had this to say about the ASUU strike, "We are getting to the stage where recurrent expenditure take the bulk of our resources and people get paid but can do no work". A pathetic comment from a minister under whose nose billions of naira are siphoned from the national treasury on a daily basis without being accounted for.

A few weeks ago, Reps declared that 320 billion naira was missing from the national treasury-money realised from the sale of crude oil. Here is a country where Federal lawmakers are alleged to be the highest paid in the world with a senator earning about 2.5 million naira a month. That is the salary of over 50 teachers put together. What do lawmakers in Nigeria do to earn that amount of money? What do they contribute to the economy?

Government officials do not see anything wrong in politicians earning outrageous salaries, nothing wrong with politicians having unrestrained access to the national treasury but everything wrong with funding education and securing the future of Nigerian children. Here is a country where high profile corruption cases are celebrated on a daily basis.

A country where over a million graduates are churned out of the universities without any hope of employment yet criminals are given federal recognition, awards and pay.

ASUU strike is more a fight against a rotten system than a fight for personal income.
I believe that the government should chart the course in repositioning the education sector in Nigeria. Cut off unnecessary expenditure and show serious commitment to the development of human beings rather than engaging in frivolities.

One thing ASUU must ensure is that there must be transparency in the management of funds meant for the development of the universities. University administrators should not be carried away by the flamboyant lifestyles of politicians that naturally tend towards corruption.

They must see themselves as nation builders and not gods that should be worshipped. Other sources of funding such as endowments, fees and levies, gifts, international aids, investments, research grants and internally generated revenue should be explored and managed properly.

By:Besidone Ebule

besidoneebule@gmail.com

07030335501, 08182196636.

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