By Muhammad Bashir Abdulrazaq
Let us stop asking government to fund Universities by injecting N220 billion per year which acrued to N1.1 trillion because government refused to honour its promise. That is greediness. Let us adopt the UK model and collect registration fees of at least N2,000,000 (around £4,000) from citizens who want to have a degree and about N5,000,000 (around £10,000) from non-citizens.
By doing this, the government will be happy we will not be asking them to fund Universities which every Dick and Harry can afford. They will have more billions to renovate their offices and buy exotic cars.
The Universities will have more fund to pay lecturers so as to slow down the brain drain in Nigerian Universities, where the good lecturing materials are taken away by oil companies and foreign institutions.
The Universities can equip their laboratories and fund more advanced researches to be able to stand shoulder to shoulder with Universities of International standard. This will even attract private institutions to give research funding to the Universities.
Anybody who can not afford that can go and work as a restaurant waiter, taxi driver, etc. There are a lot of alternatives to life.
If you still insist, you can take bank loan of about N10,000,000 for a four year degree which after interest you will pay at least N12,000,000. This means after the degree if you get a job of N100,000 per month, you can be paying the bank N50,000 per month. With this plan, you can pay the loan in just 20 years of your working life. After that, you will have a whole ten or so years to buy house, car, invest and plan for retirement.
With this solution, ASUU will not have to ask government for better funding or University autonomy which comes with this IPPIS issue. Universities will be declared a revenue generating institutions and therefore needs not join IPPIS just like customs, NNPC etc. By the way, at the end of each year we can declare losses just like NNPC.
The system can also be tweaked such that part of the benefits of being a lecturer is that your kids can study for free in the Universities.
The public that is so much concerned about ASUU’s greediness will be automatically satisfied. The elite will also be happy that their children will be able to study in high standard University without having to mix with commoners. Lecturers will get their wish of better funding. Problem solved everybody is happy.
For those who are fuming through the mouth, thumping and beating their chests because I posted a suggestion that Universities should fund themselves by collecting money from students, those who think I am selfish and hate the poor because I already graduated, be happy. This is not my suggestion. This is the government’s suggestion (Babalakin panel) which ASUU has been fighting and have been going on strike for. The strikes that have been earning them your insults and all.
Your responses show that you’ve never cared to know why your Universities are closed. You prefer to read headlines sponsored by government propaganda that says “ASUU are supporting corruption” as if it is coming from a government of saints. You don’t really care for the education of the poor as you claimed to.
Government proposed this privatisation and ASUU rejected it many times. ASUU fought for University autonomy which is a hitch to the government. For them to arm twist the universities, they have to erode that autonomy. If they control University accounts(which TSA will help them to achieve), control staff salary which they are trying to do through IPPIS, later control projects in universities, they can tell universities managements and staff to do whatever they like. If anybody refuses, they’ll starve the University or the staff.
By the time everything roll out and what they want finally materialise, you will not afford education beyond secondary school.