Abimbola Adelakun: LASU – Fashola’s unwinnable war

by Abimbola Adelakun

One is that the LASU fee hike is economically justified. The stark reality is that tertiary education, worldwide, is by no means cheap. 

Students of the Lagos State University, a week ago today, took their aluta to a melodramatic level by camping out in front of the governor’s office to register their grievances against their mind blowing university tuition. It was a comical sight of sorts, watching the students “cooking beans” in front of the Government House. Simultaneously, it was a scene that elicited deep worries.

Protest over inflated rate of school fees is by no means limited to LASU. Students of the University of Lagos have had to take to the streets to protest a certain fee hike; the same obtains for students of the University of Port Harcourt and Obafemi Awolowo University.

First, a quick question: Where is the Academic Staff Union of Universities in all these?

During ASUU’s last strike action in 2013, part of its defence was that it was “fighting for the students” and that with time, students would realise the strike was for their ultimate benefit.

It is not a year since the strike action was called off but the alutas continue. What, really, is responsible for this disconnect, and apparent lack of sync between the groups? Whatever happened to ASUU’s cause and how did the students get left behind?

While the varied protests have similar nuances, I hesitate to lump them all in one basket. The degree of reasonableness exhibited by the students –and I must add, their realistic approach to the socio-economic realities of the rising costs of education – are not all quite the same.

Some of the costs the students are protesting against are, as far as battle logic goes, needless. Why, for instance, should they refuse to pay health insurance? They might quarrel over the quality of medical care they receive, but to refuse to pay the sum does not make sense.

The case of LASU, however, stands out in all the protests. It is a battle that has been raging for years and should have been resolved long ago. The authorities have not shown enough regard for the students’ demands, its energies instead, were devoted to a ‘cabal’ of senior staff accused of being corrupt.

It is particularly striking that LASU is domicilled in a key All Progressives Congress state; a party that likes to parade socialist/Awoist ideals – which include “free” education. If the intractable LASU crisis had been in a Peoples Democratic Party state, for instance, the APC’s spokespersons would have badgered us to death with endless press releases, telling us about the opposition’s incompetence at managing an education-based crisis.

There are three ways I see the ‘battle’, by the way.

One is that the LASU fee hike is economically justified. The stark reality is that tertiary education, worldwide, is by no means cheap. The model where fees are next-to-nothing have implications and are being reengineered by even the welfare countries of Europe and others. Even Britain, whose educational policies stirred our early quest, has jettisoned its low-fee tertiary education scheme. The British Riots of 2010 were because of a 200 per cent increase in tuition fees. That battle has rested but it still generates occasional seismic waves. In the United States, the story is slightly different but the same overall. The tale of tertiary fees is perennially unpalatable anywhere quality education is being received.

Two is the median income of those who attend LASU as against the cost of education. While the fee –up to N390, 000 in some cases – is ‘justified,’ the question is, can parents/guardians pay? It is easy to dismiss the students’ angst and tell them to look for a cheaper alternative but how sensible is that for even LASU authorities? What will be the cost-benefit to the school if students’ population should reduce by, say, half? Can the huge sums by those who pay cover for those who will inevitably drop out? So if the fees are not affordable, why should the state insist on keeping them? Universities exist to serve students, not otherwise. It therefore makes no sense –economic, social or political – if students cannot acquire knowledge. Especially, if they are residents of a state where they or their parents pay taxes, and also practically provide for themselves basic amenities government should.

Three is, if the costs are justified but people cannot pay, who should pick up the tab? Who pays for the shortfall?

Today, people talk about the free education policy of the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo but seem to forget he did not finance education from his own pockets. People were taxed for the free education policy to succeed. How many people today who gleefully romanticise the free education years of Awolowo would be willing to be taxed as heavily as necessary to make the policy a possibility again?

I would be cautious about advocating free education at tertiary level in 2014 because of the obvious reason of the differences in both eras. What worked in the 50s cannot be that easily transplantable to contemporary times. Already, the quality of education we receive in Nigeria dwindles all the time and cheapening it further by making it “free” – or as affordable as possible – might just be counterproductive. So, how do you make education qualitative and affordable at the same time? For Nigeria, it is a rather complicated question considering our peculiarities.

Some commentators have cited examples of countries like the UK and the US where students can take loans to pay their way through school. If any government in Nigeria is considering the idea, it should save everybody’s time and skip it. Apart from Nigeria’s lacking the necessary demographic and surveillance data to properly monitor the process, there is no guarantee –yet–that people will get jobs after school to offset their student loans.

Other countries that have been cited are the Nordic states where university education is almost free. Apart from cultural and socio-economic differences of those places, their tax rates are amongst the highest in the world. Countries also take care of their citizens’ educational needs by taking in foreign students who ameliorate the costs through the high rate of fees they pay.

Since Nigeria does not have any of such funding models and, Lagos State, for all its economic prosperity, is constrained on several fronts, the question for LASU is, who pays the bill? How can the state shave the costs off the students directly and redirect the same to the people?

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