Urges review of TSA
THE Academic Staff of Polytechnics (ASUP) has hinged the revitalization of education sector under the present administration on the quality of policy direction that the next Minister of Education brings into the office.

The National President of ASUP, Chibuzo Asomugha, who disclosed this in Abuja, explained that while it is not compulsory to have an Educationist as the Minister of Education, it is imperative for the incoming Minister must have an open mind and engage relevant stakeholders to move the sector forward.

He said: “The personality that mans the ministry of Education is a concern to our union and every other stakeholder in the education sector. From experience, the standard practice by the government of Nigeria, until recently, to presume that education in Nigeria is all about university education. So, there has been a tendency to believe that administering the ministry of education must be put in the hands of a particular class of academia.

ASUP will love a situation where the Minister of Education is chosen is not base on any cognomen of any academic title, but based on an capacity to be able to transcend all the strata of education system that include basic, post-basic and to tertiary levels. We want somebody who understands what it takes to work with people, not somebody who will bring an elitist approach to issues who relies on consultants that propound theories that amount to nothing.”
He stressed that while the quality of Ministerial nominees cannot be faulted, the qualities that are urgently needed in the Minister of Education include passion and commitment to the task.

I think that government should look for somebody who is down to earth, forward thinking, engage with the real stakeholders that include students, parents who pay school fees, the teachers who teach the students and the administrators who administer the running of the campuses. These are the real people that can form the basics for policies aimed at revamping education in Nigeria,” Asomugha explained.

He insisted that Nigeria does not need a Professor to have a good Minister of Education, saying, “the last Minister of Education, Ibrahim Shekarau, had an approach that was all-inclusive. He was actually moving in a direction that could have taken our education sector to higher grounds but for little time he had. Shekarau is not a Professor. He ended up as a Principal of a secondary school. ”

Indeed, he argued that government should extend its dragnet beyond the four walls of education sector by inviting entrepreneurs as Minister of Education. All that is needed is a good manager of manpower and resources to make a change that is manifestly evident for every stakeholder to testify to that we have indeed made a step forward.

Asomugha blames neglect of technical education even at the primary school level for lack of interest of Nigerian youths from pursuing technical education at tertiary level.

His words: “How many technical schools are available in Nigeria as we speak? Children are trained from primary through secondary schools based on theory and suddenly they are asked to proceed to the polytechnics whereas he has never been exposed to technical education. By design, polytechnics are capital intensive that government should dedicate more funds to. Polytechnics require machines and high capital-intensive machines for learning because of its technical nature. But what do we see? Polytechnic receives very low percentage of funding. It is because of desire to generate funds that forced some institutions into offering course they are not established to offer. And the fault goes to government who has refused to fund these institutions adequately.”

The union also urged the Federal Government to critically examine the Treasury Single Account (TSA) with a view to examining those agencies of government especially tertiary and allow them operate a moderated form of TSA.
He added: “We are saying this because the fluidity of operations of the institutions will be greatly hampered if they operate within the present format of TSA.”

ASUP also took a swipe at the low level of budgetary provision for the education sector saying, it is not only one of the backward in the entire African continent, but had also stunted the development of education in the country.
“We have discovered that the budgetary provision for education on annual basis has hovered between 4% coming to peak 11% in 2012. The provision has not come near the 26% benchmark set by the UNESCO. We are now asking the Federal Government that in this era of change, to actually change the perspective of government towards funding of education by increasing budgetary allocation to at least 26%. This could even be more. Ghana is committing 31% while South Africa is also allocating 28%. Though this has been the practice over the years, it is our fervent hope that this administration will make a difference,” he explained.