31st December, 2019
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has said that the education sector witnessed growth without development in 2019, likening the situation to ‘motion without movement’.
The union’s National President, Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi, made the assessment in a telephone interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday.
According to him, new educational institutions were established 2019 with no concrete plans on how to equip them.
“It is like creating new potential crisis centres.
“When you talk of educational facilities at the primary, secondary or tertiary level, there is no evidence of the supply of ingredients that can enhance quality.
“What we have, therefore, is a situation of concern about expansion and not concern about qualitative transformation of the sector.
“We have seen a lot of drama around activities that border on expansion but did not see equal energy being channelled toward qualitative transformation; that is why we see the sector in the outgoing year as having witnessed growth without development,” Ogunyemi said.
According to him, there is the need to focus on existing institutions across board to build qualitative manpower.
“We should see them (governments) addressing the rot that currently permeates educational facilities at all levels in the country.
“I dare say that state governments are not even looking into the direction of the Universal Basic Education Commission funds, because they are not willing to make available their counterpart funds.
“ASUU has always argued that there are three elements that defines the educational system of a country.
“These elements are access, quality and relevance. We have only been dancing around the issue of expansion, which merely talks of access,” he said.
The don added that continuous rise in the cost of education had made education at all levels inaccessible to the children of the poor,” Ogunyemi said.
The ASUU president described the education sector in 2019 as `motion without movement.