Comrade Adekunle Razaq Aderibigbe the New Nigeria People’s Party candidate contesting for a seat in the Lagos State House of Assembly, Ikorodu 1 Constituency has proffered workable solutions to stem the ugly trend of the protracted strike action embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), which is fast becoming a yearly ritual taking its toll on the students statutory years of study, parents economy’s, employees and other businesses interest directly and indirectly connected to the system.
Adekunle asserted during a chat with newsmen in Lagos that giving the government’s sloppy mien on tertiary education in the country, key players need take decisive steps at addressing it to safe the sector from imminent collapse.
The NNPP flag bearer identified three important factors that can help put a lasting solution to the crisis.
Adekunle said that: “There are three categories of Actors that should be willing to be committed to play their roles to phase out this traditional strike.
“The government must be willing to increase funding for education as allocated in the national budget.The parents or guardians must also be willing to pay premiums and not the current token being charged for this life worthy knowledge.
“The Universities must be transparently wilful and open to the public about their financial activities and reports in line with the public sector accounting standards and principles. We have had cases where accounts are not being audited or susceptible to bad governance practice.
He however, advocated for the deliberate listing of institutions for private shareholding participation citing the fact that this can unlock Universities productivity and engender capabilities to compete favourably with others on global scales.
“The institution can be listed for private shareholding participation, while the student loans scheme can supported by laws that makes it thrive with a long term finance structure, that will make it equitably accessible for interested students to be empowered as required while paying back in the long run.
“This will unlock the universities productivity and also ensure it lives up to best standards competing with international varsities, while attracting more foreign students to respective local campuses. It will also engineer more foreign cooperation and affiliations with other institutions around the world.” Adekunle submits.
He added that consequently, the private placement participation and enabling financing structure for student loans will go a long way, to make Nigeria Universities more effective and educational tourist destination for foreign students.
Adekunle also cited the loss of students to foreign universities as one of the consequence of the development, “Presently, Nigerians has not just been importing foreign education from Europe, United Kingdom or United States but recently more is being lost to neighbouring countries like Ghana and Benue republic, due to inconsistency in the tertiary education system.
“All these bottlenecks are very unnecessary at this age. Our numbers can be turn to strength rather than being made our defects.
“The current 7-month unproductive tertiary educational sector and the connected actors will be contributing to the persistent rise in the goods and services which was reported recently to have been peaked at 17-year high at 19.6%.
“We cannot afford to continue to draw ourselves back at a time we need to be at faster pace.”
Commenting on why the concern is timely, Adekunle noted that allowing the strike action to continue will be tantamount to allowing terrorism a breeding ground and further dwindle the nation’s strength to win the war against insurrection.