17th June, 2016
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) is to partner with the Federal Government to attract and retain the best brains in the country’s university system.
The newly-elected President of ASUU, Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi, made the disclosure on Friday in Lagos.
According to him, one of the greatest challenges facing the university system is the problem of brain drain.
He noted that attracting and retaining Nigerian scholars was one of the issues the executive of ASUU was set to tackle.
Ogunyemi argued that the Nigerian university system had what it takes to compete favourably with universities in other climes if given the enabling environment.
“We run collective leadership in ASUU by way of collating views, ideas and perspectives to generate our programmes.
“At the last national delegate’s conference at the University of Uyo in Akwa Ibom, a number of resolutions were passed.
“One of such resolutions was looking at ways to attract and retain the best brains in our university system.
“We also resolved to re-negotiate the agreement we entered into with the Federal Government in 2009 as well as implementing the terms.
“There was also the resolution of tacking the issue of poor funding and immense decay of facilities in our universities among others”
According to him, the union will intensify efforts in ensuring that its agenda are achieved within the shortest possible time.
“We are determined more than ever before to execute the agenda set for us during the union’s 19th delegate’s conference, held from May 6 to May 8.
“This is with respect to making Nigerian public universities globally competitive.
“It is only when we meet these set agenda that we can achieve our much desired world-class universities,” he said.
Ogunyemi noted that achieving this would also require addressing motivational needs of scholars.
He argued that for the scholars to stay in the system and contribute their quotas in the development of the system there must be state-of-the-art facilities in place.
“We must begin to work toward providing an enabling environment for quality research.
“This will include world-class laboratories, libraries, current books offices and classrooms.
“These are what we require to be productive. Motivation should not be all about salary but about funds to conduct research and other academic mandates,’’ he said.
Ogunyemi is a professor of curriculum studies and citizenship education at the Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago- Iwoye in Ogun.
He took over the mantle of leadership of ASUU on May 9.