Crisis in Ajayi Crowther University and the Question of Private Education
Crisis in Ajayi Crowther University and the Question of Private Education
The recent newspaper report of the crisis in Ajayi Crowther University,
Oyo, has again brought to the fore the role of privately owned educational
institutions as a way out of the crises in the public education sector.
According to reports, the students of the institution had embarked on a violent
protest to vent their anger, against the mismanagement of health condition of a
fellow student by the university administration leading to his demise. The victim
student had gone to the institution’s health centre to complain of health
problems, but his situation grew worse that his breathing had to be supported
with artificial oxygen. Rather than put on the electricity generating set to
attend to the student, the health centre management preferred to preserve the
generating set for the vice chancellor. Worse still, attempt by the deceased
colleagues to facilitate his transfer to better hospital in town was frustrated
by the institution’s security personnel.
All of these are serious grounds for protest by the
students, as they reflect not only high level of insensitivity but also
high-handedness by those that are the supposed locus parentis of the students. However,
that the protest turned violent is a reflection of the lack of democratic space
for students to air their views and peacefully seek for redress in their living
and studying conditions. This is compounded by terrible living conditions of
the students and the exploitation of the poor students and their parents by the
authorities of the institution. According to the newspaper report, the basic
living facilities needed by students for normal studies – electricity supply,
water, etc are simply unavailable, despite students paying for these facilities.
Moreover, the payable fees are irregularly hiked without any regard for the
economic planning and conditions of parents. It was the summation of all this
that led to the violent protest.
However, what happened in Ajayi Crowther University can
easily be wished away as an isolated problem of the institution’s management,
but the reality is that the ACU case is a direct mirror of the rot that the
private university system represents. While there may not be protest (nay
violent) in many private universities yet, it does not however imply that these
other institutions are not operating with the same system as ACU. For instance,
none of the private universities allows student unionism, nay workers’
unionism, which is flagrant violation of the principle of academic freedom and
constitutional right of association that are fundamental ingredients for proper
development of intellectualism. According to the 1994 Lima (Peru) Declaration
on Academic Freedom, right to dissent and alternative views and opinions not
only on intellectual activities but also on societal and collective issues is fundamental
to academic freedom, especially in intellectual factory like university.
That these private institutions do not allow democratic
engagement in their domain is not accidental; it is itself a product of attempt
at protecting their exploitative system. Had vibrant unionism been allowed for
students and staff, it is glaring the various private institutions’ owners,
including the faith-based ones would have been exposed of various dubious and
exploitative activities being perpetrated against intellectualism in these
institutions. Most of the private schools, in an attempt to rake in profits,
had to cut funding for facilities available to students while also underpaying
the lecturers. In fact, there are several reports of unqualified lecturers
being employed in order to reduce cost of running the institutions.
Furthermore, as a result of business orientation of these institutions, standards
are compromised with a view to present the institutions as being success
stories of private efforts. A story was once related of a senior who went to a
private university for sabbatical, but hurriedly left as he was asked to
compromise standards for all the students to pass! This is aside the entrenched
admission racket, which bypasses the admission requirements set by government’s
agencies such as NUC. For instance, while students from poor and working class
background struggle to overcome the various roadblocks of SSCE, UTME, post-UTME
and admission cut off marks, in order to gain admission to public universities,
students from rich background only need to show sign of undertaking admission
examination to gain admission into private universities.
Surely, this cannot happen where there is academic freedom.
While not advocating a sadistic policy of failing students in order to show
fake quality, evaluating students should not be compromised on the altar of
sustaining patronage. Ironically, the aim of the private universities’
managements is not real quality or bringing out the students’ best, but gaining
more patronage and resources through dubious whitewashing and public relations.
It is thus not accidental that these institutions spend more money on media spin.
In fact, a sizable proportion of private universities that are portrayed as
quality in the newspapers are nothing more than glorified secondary schools.
That all of this is allowed by the government and its
supervising agencies like National Universities Commission (NUC) is a
reflection of the pro-big business character of government and its officials. In
the real sense, it is the children of the rich few and the upper middle class that
mostly patronize these private institutions. Moreover, private education is an
excuse for government and politicians in power to shirk in their responsibility
towards public education. The government deliberately is propping up these
private educational institutions, many of which are owned and run by government
officials (present and past) and their cronies. For instance, the present head
of NUC was a former vice chancellor of a private university (Bells University)
while the immediate past head of the same agency is a pro-chancellor of Osun
State University (UNIOSUN) where exorbitant fees are being charged albeit with
exceptionally poor facilities. Therefore, it is no accident that supervising
agencies in the education sector such as NUC and the ministry blind themselves
to the rot in the private educational institutions.
The general excuse for denying unionism is that unionism breeds
long academic calendars. What is not said is that it is government’s neglect
and irresponsibility – coupled with high-handedness of university
administrators who see their roles as that of conduit pipes for their
principals’ retrogressive policies – that have turned our public tertiary institutions
to citadels of crises. Interestingly, the same insensitivity is now the fad in
these private institutions as exemplified by arbitrary hike in fees, lack of
democratic rights for students and staff, and worse living and working
conditions. What distinguishes the two is the presence of unionism in public
institutions, which makes managing the students’ reactions to the retrogressive
policies of the government and university officials better organized. It is
worth mentioning however that majority of public university administrations are
now vigorously adopting the anti-democratic approach of private institutions to
curtail the rights of students and even staff; a part of the holistic plan of
the government to completely privatize and commercialize (out of common man’s
reach) public education. The private institutions have denied this right
outright with spectre of unplanned and violent outburst of bottled up angers at
the manner of running these institutions has manifested in the ACU case.
As a way of running away from the basic question of academic
freedom and democratic rights; many of the private university owners hide under
the guise of raising morally upright graduates with good entrepreneurial
skills. However, as the popular axiom teaches, education is what is left in
student after what has been taught has gone; how then can a student develop a
critical mind of self-recreation if the culture of criticism and inquisition
(of seeming accepted norms) are denied. In reality, this veil of morality is merely
an excuse to avoid answering basic question of how the institutions are run
albeit in exploitative, undemocratic and anti-intellectual manners.
Consequently, various completely anti-intellectual rules are set in order to
gag the students. It is thus a fashion for universities authorities to treat
undergraduates, who ordinarily are ripe for social/public tasks, like pupils. Principal
officials of a faith-based university in Osun State were recently reported to
be flogging students, ostensibly on the order of their parents! Another
faith-based university in the same state was reported to bar students from
wearing jeans, while compulsory religious devotions and prep classes are
organized for them! Surely, similar if not worse policies will be practiced in
ACU.
But has this stopped the violent protest? In fact, private
universities are increasingly becoming safe havens for gangsters, many of whom
are wards of upper middle class cum rich few in the society. A private
university in Ibadan, where regular reports of anti-social activities like
robbery, rape, and other crimes being perpetrated by the students is a ready
example. It could not have been otherwise, as the so called moral values cannot
be enforced on grown up youths neither is morality itself determined by the
choice of clothe you wear, the kind of music you listen to, and the rest.
Social moral is a reflection of the socio-economic and political setting of the
society. A country where a few rich can have their ways and make riches without
undertaking any productive activity, and nobody, agency or structure questions
such, cannot escape from desperation of the youths. A society where public
resources meant to expand social infrastructures that will provide decent jobs
for millions of youths, are diverted to private pockets, thus creating
generations of hopeless, desperate youths cannot escape from disintegration of
social fabrics. It has nothing to do with self-righteous and archaic religious
injunctions and morality. Interestingly, these private universities themselves
are run on immoral and not-so-transparent manners as cited above – cronyism,
erosion of standards (for patronage and profits), exploitation of students,
gagging the students and staff from asking questions, etc. What is even the
morality in feasting on the rotten carcass of public education, with a view to
gaining profits? Is it accidental a sizable proportion of the private
universities are run by religious organizations, which charge pocket-tearing
fees? Yet the funding of these faith-based universities is supposedly from
their members offerings.
It can easily be argued that private universities provide
choice for those who can afford them. This argument is simplistic. In the first
instance, private education did not arise on the basis of choice but on the
basis of collapse of public university system, occasioned by deliberate and
criminal under funding and mismanagement (of meager resources) by the
capitalist governments and their stooges in university administrations. Until
the mid-1980s, private education (including primary and post-primary) are not
popular. This is not accidental, but a product of pressure (through bitter
struggles of workers and students) on the government to commit public resources
to public education. Despite government’s falling funding of public education,
it is still possible to hope to be educated even if your parents are poor. Consequent
upon the adoption of the poisonous pills of neo-liberalism, exemplified by the
Babangida’s Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAP), public education was
rapidly turned to commodity that has to be bought in the market by parents who
wanted educated children, the same way health and decent jobs were made
privileges.
Thus, governments subsequently did not see education as a
social obligation of the society, but a private affair of individuals. This is
backed up by chronic and continuous underfunding of the whole education sector
leading to terrible working conditions of teaching staff from primary to
tertiary levels. The end results of these are: continuous crises in the sector
through elongated industrial actions of teaching and non-teaching staff (who
needed to protect their hard-won rights), commercialization of education
facilities and increases in fees, collapse of facilities (leading to students’
resistance), etc. With total collapse of the economy and its attendant erosion
of hope in the ability of the state to raise living standards including
provision of jobs, public education simply lost the compass with rise in
gangster activities on campus, declining interests in education, drastic fall
in morale of working staff, etc. It is on this rot that private education
(starting with private primary and post-primary schools) started gaining echo,
especially among middle class people. Today, despite the emergence of so-called
civilian rule coupled with the huge resources at the disposal of the state,
state of public education has worsened to an extent in which even a pepper
seller, who can afford it, send her ward to a private school.
This however does not imply that the private schools provide
any real quality; in the real sense, it is otherwise. More than 90 percent of
private schools still lack the basic standards of public schools, even in their
current debilitating conditions. The few private schools that have adequate
facilities and infrastructures are simply unaffordable for majority of the
population who struggle to make ends meet. That this virus of private education
that has crept into the life of a sick public education, has found its way to
the zenith of education – university system, underlines the complete irresponsibility
of the governments at all levels. Worse still, to underscore ruling class shameless
backwardness, the private education system (an abnormality in itself) is now
being used as standard to run public institutions with state universities
competing with private universities in education commercialization.
This is not accidental as the politicians in power are
members of the rich class who does not feel what those they are supposedly
representing are suffering. In fact, virtually all politicians in power are
themselves members of the exploiting, big business class, who see no sense in
anything public; thus their negative or at best carefree attitude towards
everything public – education, health, water, sanitation, jobs, etc. This in
itself underscores the fact that revamping public education to adequate
standards with unrestricted access to the majority requires a government that
really believes in public education as a social responsibility of the state; a
government that will not see education in isolation from other social
obligations including decent job provision for graduates and non-graduates,
among others. Therefore, education workers and students; and indeed the working
and oppressed people in general must see the struggle to salvage public
education as a collective one against the behemoth of anti-working people’s
politicians in power. The campaign of the university lecturers’ union for
proper funding of education and democratization of decision making in the
university system must become the collective struggle of all education workers
and students. More than this, the working people must begin the process of
altering the political landscape by building alternative political platform
that will put properly funded and democratically run education system on a
front burner, as part of the holistic programmes of mass investment in social
and public infrastructures.
Kola Ibrahim
P.O. Box 1319 GPO, Enuwa, Ile-Ife, Nigeria
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