War against corruption gets to schools

Corrupt practices will no longer be tolerated in tertiary institutions. In the new dispensation, lecturers can be prosecuted for failing to complete their syllabus,


What corruption has permeated the fabric of the Nigerian society is no longer news. Like other sectors, the education sector is not beyond its reach and effect.

Chairman, Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) Dr Ekpo Nta said in an interview that the extent of corrupt practices in institutions has given the agency a cause for concern, particularly given the important socialization role formal educational institutions are meant to play.

Explaining the agency has been besieged by petitions of corrupt practices in tertiary institutions, the ICPC boss said investigating and prosecuting corrupt practices is not enough. He said the war will be more effectively won if fraud is prevented in the first place.

To this end he said the agency has produced two vital documents which are expected will greatly help curb corruption. The documents are: the University System Study and Review (USSR), a template that prescribes steps to prevent corruption in universities; and the National Values Curriculum (NVC), which has been infused into the school curricula at the basic and senior secondary education levels, as well as that of the Colleges of Education. The chairman added that the NVC will also be infused into the curricula of universities and polytechnics.

Nta said the potential of ICPC’s prevention mandate to save cost and reduce losses of national and institutional resources to corruption is part of what inspired the agency to design templates to nip corruption in educational institutions.

Wit the USSR template, which was developed with the help of Prof Olu Aina, a commissioner with ICPC following empirical investigations into administrative processes in three universities (University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye and Salem University, Lokoja), Nta said corrupt practices should be expected to reduce in schools.

The template has eight sections that deal with Admission, Enrolment and Registration of Courses (section 1); Examination Administration, Award of Degrees and Graduation of Students (Section 2); Teaching and Learning Services and Facilities (Section 3); Appointments, Promotion and Discipline of Staff (Section 4); Departmental Administration and Faculty Governance (Section 5); Contract Award (Section 6); Financial Management (Section 7); and Research and Research Administration (Section 8).

Each section lists the corrupt practices associated with the subjects they discuss, and roles the tertiary institutions, National Universities Commission (NUC), the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) and the ICPC should play to prevent corruption from occurring, which Nta believes will be more profitable for all parties involved.

Nta said in the forward of the template: “‘Prevention is better than cure,’ so goes the old adage. In our efforts to combat this unwholesome phenomenon in our tertiary institutions, we also subscribe to this adage. It is far cheaper to prevent an act of corruption than to clean up the consequences of the mess created. It is in this context that this template has been prepared to accompany the main report of the pilot phase and the Template for Conducting System Study and Review in Universities.”

For instance, to prevent examination malpractice covered in Section 2 of the document, universities are expected to install CCTV cameras in examination halls; print question papers on the day of the examination to reduce leakages; use of CBT; carefully select people of integrity to handle examinations among others. The NUC is expected to dutifully carry out its oversight functions; while ICPC could help by re-orienting students about the merits and demerits of examination malpractices.

Section three, which covers the teaching and learning facilities, lists delay in take-off of lectures and non-completion of syllabus by lecturers as a corrupt practice. Others are: Non-adherence to students/lecturer ratio results in over-crowding of classes; and lack of commitment to work by the lecturers, leading to absenteeism and non-preparation for lectures.

Nta said once the template is in use in schools, the ICPC would prosecute academic and non-academic workers that perpetrate the infractions.

The ICPC chair also noted that the agency is interested in follow up visits to the ones done by the NUC to cross-check claims made by universities to gain accreditation for their programmes.

“We have started a procedure of beginning to collect visitation reports of the NUC used for accreditation. We will go round the institutions without prior notice and when we come around, we will like to see the equipment the NUC accreditation marked as seen. If the otherwise is discovered, we will treat it as a very serious infraction meant to deceive. We cannot leave the responsibility of making universities attractive to universities alone. We must address the issues ourselves,” he said.

Throwing light on the NVC, Nta said the curricula deals with 12 value themes that have been infused into the select subjects taught in primary and secondary schools.

The values are: honesty, discipline, justice, right attitude to work, citizens’ rights and duties, national consciousness, contentment, courage, regard and concern for the interest of others, role of the family, religious and spiritual values, and Nigerian traditional values.

The values will be taught in subjects such as English, Business Studies, Christian Religious Studies, Islamic Studies, Social Studies, and Civic Education at the Basic Education level (Primary 1-JSS3), while at the senior secondary level, they will be taught the national values in Book Keeping, CRS, IS, History and Food and Nutrition.

Nta said the NVC has been hailed internationally as Nigeria is one of the first countries to come up with a document to prevent corruption.

“Nigeria has been invited to make a presentation at the UN office in Vienna on the National Value Curriculum. It has been described as a good model of prevention,” he said.

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Strike: ASUU Hails Legislators For Intervention, Looks Forward To Positive Outcome

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), on Wednesday hailed the Senate Committee on Education for its role in trying to resolve the face-off between the union and the Federal Government.

 

The National President of the union, Dr Nasir Fagge, made the commendation in a telephone interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), in Lagos.

ASUU had on July 1, embarked on an indefinite strike over the non-implementation of some issues contained in an agreement it entered into with the Federal government in 2009.

One week into the strike, the Minister of Education, Prof. Ruqqayatu Rufai, appealed to the striking lecturers to reconsider their stand and go back to work, pending the resolution of issues involved.

The Senate Committee on Education also called ASUU for a meeting on Tuesday, towards a resolution of the issues--but it could not hold.

Fagge told NAN:``I sincerely want to appreciate the efforts of the National Assembly in its role at ensuring that it gets the executive arm of government to do what it is supposed to do on this issue.

Our meeting with the Senate Committee on Education that was slated for Tuesday July 9, could not hold because of some pressing issues that needed urgent attention.

The meeting has now been moved to Monday, July 15, when we are expected to deliberate on several issues that are related to the general development of the sector’’.

Fagge said he looked forward to the meeting with the legislators and hoped it would help in resolving the issues which led to the strike.

I am confident that the National Assembly will seize this opportunity in prevailing on the executive to do what they are supposed to do so.

``I hope that at the end of the deliberation, we would have cause to be happy and get ourselves back to work.

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Why I am againstASUU’s frequentindefinite strikes

By Douglas Anele
Once again, another
round of insensate
indefinite strike by the
Academic Staff Union of
Universities (ASUU) has
paralysed academic
activities in federal and
state universities
nationwide.
According to the union,
the decision to go on
strike stems from
government’s insincerity
and lack of seriousness,
which led to the non-
implementation of some
provisions of the 2011
agreement.
Specifically, the issue
concerns “earned
allowances,” that is,
allowances meant for the
excess workload by
lecturers, which include
teaching more students
than the recommended
number, supervision of
post-graduate
dissertations, and sundry
administrative functions
performed by lecturers.
For me, President
Goodluck Jonathan is a
great disappointment to
his former colleagues,
considering the fact that
as a former lecturer, he
should have invested
heavily and wisely in the
educational sector. When
military dictators were in
power, they put a lot of
money into defence
because that is their
primary constituency.
There is no good reason
why a former academic
should not give
preferential treatment to
the education sector,
because well-educated
human capital is the most
important factor in
national development. As
I have always argued
whenever ASUU resorts
to indefinite strike,
successive federal and
state governments have
never lived up to their
responsibilities to
institutions of higher
learning in the country.
This is because of heart-
rending corruption and
lack of deep appreciation
by political office holders
of the fundamental role
sound tertiary education
plays in national
development, especially
now that we a living in a
knowledge-driven
globalising world.
Speaking of corruption,
Jonathan’s administration
lacks the moral authority
and iron will to deal with it
decisively. Consequently,
scarce public funds that
ought to be used to
improve education and
other critical sectors of
our national life are looted
and the remainder is
wasted on the sybaritic
lifestyles of top
government functionaries.
That said, the reaction of
Prof. Julius Okojie,
Executive Secretary,
National Universities
Commission (NUC) to the
current strike is
disingenuous. According
to him, ASUU should
have persevered because
the amount it presented to
government for settling
the unpaid allowances
was huge. Prof. Okojie
ignored the fact that there
is enough money to meet
most of ASUU’s
demands, but President
Jonathan and other top
public office holders are
not managing it wisely.
Moreover, given
government’s half-hearted
implementation of
agreements with ASUU in
the past, the union is
justified in thinking that
government does not
really intend to keep its
own side of the bargain
this time around also.
Nevertheless, if indeed it is
true, as Okojie alleged,
that ASUU did not get
back to government after
its National Executive
Council meeting at Olabisi
Onabanjo University
before announcing the
strike, then the union
acted in bad faith. Why is
ASUU in a hurry to
declare an indefinite strike
just for earned
allowances, to which only
some lecturers are entitled
anyway? In my view,
considering the serious
damages to the
universities caused by
frequent indefinite strikes,
ASUU should have been a
little more patient, no
matter the level of
frustration with the
unnecessary delays by
government in paying the
allowances.
From the foregoing,
government is wrong in
failing to abide by the
terms of the agreement it
has with representatives
of the lecturers and
deserves blame for giving
ASUU an excuse to
embark on strike once
again. Yet, it would be
intellectually dishonest,
and false, not to highlight
some of the ways
lecturers have contributed
to the financial problems
in various public-owned
universities. To begin
with, university authorities
across the country, just
like politicians in
government right now,
are guilty of financial
recklessness and
mismanagement of
resources.
Government-owned
universities derive funds
from two principal
sources, namely,
government subventions
and internally generated
revenue (or IGR). In terms
of IGR, authorities of the
University of Lagos are
working very hard to
optimise the revenue-
generating potentials of
the institution. But there
are many leakages in the
financial pipelines of our
university system as a
whole which prevent
optimum utilisation of
available resources to
cater for the welfare of
lecturers. For example, it
appears that the
universities are competing
to see which one would
have the largest fleet of
redundant brand new
cars and which Vice
Chancellor would drive
the biggest and most
expensive jeeps. In
addition, the new
bureaucracies and
directorates of
questionable value to the
growth of the system
created in various
universities cost a lot of
money to maintain. We
should not fail to mention
the numerous, mostly
unnecessary, foreign trips
embarked upon by top
management staff of the
universities.
All this constitutes a huge
financial burden on the
system and prevents
university authorities from
paying lecturers what is
due to them. Why are the
local branches of ASUU
unwilling or unable to
demand accountability
and transparency from
relevant principal officers
of their various
universities? ASUU must
begin to look inwards
because several Vice
Chancellors, bursars etc.
will not survive
painstaking scientific audit
of their institutions:
corruption and
misappropriation of funds
are not the exclusive
preserve of politicians –
there are also bad eggs in
the universities.
Again, I do not support
indefinite strike because of
its negative effects on
students and other
stakeholders, including
lecturers. Frequent
disruptions in the
academic calendar
compromise academic
quality, frustrate students
and prolong the duration
of academic
programmes. The social
costs are immense too,
for both students and
their families. It is
disappointing that ASUU
does not consider it
appropriate to conduct a
thorough scientific study
of the repercussions of
frequent strikes on
various stakeholders
within and outside the
university system. As
academics, we are
supposed to manifest an
unceasing desire for
knowledge and truth.
Therefore, how can we,
seekers and custodians of
knowledge at the highest
level resort to strikes ad
nauseam without
corroborating evidence of
its overall effectiveness in
improving the system?
The mere fact that our
salaries increase after each
strike does not necessarily
mean that we have
become better lecturers
and researchers, let alone
guarantee positive change
in other variables that
determine the quality of
knowledge impartation in
the universities. Let us tell
ourselves the truth:
funding is a serious
problem militating against
high standards and best
practices in Nigerians
universities and
government is the major
culprit here. However, the
kind of students and
lecturers in our institutions
of higher learning
nowadays, I submit, is a
bigger problem. Many
students are not in school
to be educated; they just
want to get certificates as
soon as possible and join
the rat race for primitive
accumulation. On the
other hand, the spirit and
attitude of people joining
the academic profession,
especially in the last fifteen
years, is a negation of
what the spirit and attitude
of a genuine academic
should be.
Of course, teaching in a
university is
fundamentally a vocation.
Thus, anyone that
chooses it must be
prepared to put the quest
for truth above everything
else. Unfortunately, a
crowd of self-centred,
hypocritical, promotion-
intoxicated careerists who
are afraid to tell senior
colleagues that run the
system the plain truth,
especially when the latter
perform badly
increasingly dominate the
academia. Some of these
misfits are so fanatic
about strikes that they
would resort to violence
to prevent dissenters like
me from teaching,
forgetting that when
everyone is thinking and
acting alike, not much
critical thinking is going
on. CONCLUDED.
All the same, I am proud
of many colleagues that
reject the prevailing herd
mentality for their
erudition, intellectual
honesty, truthfulness and
genuine love for teaching.
This group of lecturers
must speak out against
destruction of the
university system by
colleagues who continue
to do the same thing
every time and expect a
different result each time.
CONCLUDED.

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