The Speaker of the Home of Representatives, Rep. Femi Gbajabiamila, has as soon as once more demonstrated how dearly he’s dedicated to nation constructing, by the just-concluded Nationwide Summit on Tertiary Schooling Reform.
Initiated by his workplace and with the help of members of the Home, the two-day summit, which ran from Tuesday, November 22 to Wednesday, November 23, was a legislative response to the obvious decay within the nation’s schooling sector, however particularly, the tertiary sub-system the place every thing from frequent strikes by tertiary establishment staff, poor funding, collapsing infrastructure, mind drain, lack of capability, systemic corruption, sexual harassment to low high quality of the scholars churned out, have turn into the norm fairly than the absurd.
The broad theme of the summit was ‘Re-imagining Tertiary Schooling in Nigeria: Points, Challenges and Options.’
It adopted the termination of one of many longest industrial strikes undertaken by the Educational Workers Union of Universities (ASUU), a closure lasting eight months whereas lecturers battled for a greater college system in Nigeria.
By the way, the suspension of the strike on October 14, 2022, adopted a strategic intervention by Gbajabiamila, who, with the help of the remainder of the management of the Home, introduced ASUU and key federal authorities officers to a dialogue desk to agree on a number of implementable resolutions on the way in which out of the mess within the college system.
ASUU, in recognising and commending the function of Gbajabiamila by propelling the union to droop the strike, wrote, “In recognition of the efforts of the Speaker of the Home of Representatives, Rt. Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, and different well-meaning Nigerians, ASUU NEC resolved to droop the strike motion embarked upon on 14th February 2022. Consequently, all members of ASUU are hereby directed to renew all companies hitherto withdrawn with impact from 12.01 on Friday, 14 October, 2022.”
Gbajabiamila, an achieved lawmaker of practically 20 years, a legislator with a ardour for investing within the capability of younger individuals to imagine the obligation of nation-building sooner or later, adopted up by saying that his workplace would organise a summit to x-ray the gamut of drawbacks to tertiary schooling in Nigeria. It was with a view to proffering legislative options to the challenges, along with suggestions by individuals educated within the administration of upper schooling.
The Speaker saved his phrase! But, the ASUU case was just one out of many interventions Gbajabiamila and the Home have needed to make within the greater than three years of the lifetime of the ninth Home to resolve knotty eventualities within the nation earlier than they get utterly uncontrolled, and even tragic.
The recap of some can be helpful right here. In authorities/labour dispute alone, the Speaker has intervened and both resolved points or lowered the associated fee to the nation when it comes to losses in no less than three situations. For ASUU/FG disputes, this yr’s wasn’t the primary. In 2021 when ASUU gave a nationwide strike warning, it was Gbajabiamila, in his typical custom, who rapidly intervened by inviting the union’s leaders to the Nationwide Meeting for a dialogue that led to ASUU holding again.
In the identical 2021, the Speaker intervened twice to assist discover options to a number of the points that agitated members of the Nationwide Affiliation of Resident Docs (NARD) since 2020. The Home, beneath Gbajabiamila’s steerage, pushed for the budgeting of between N4bn and N7bn in a bid to offset excellent allowances owed the docs, one of many essential causes for his or her strike and extra strike threats. In Could and September 2020, Speaker Gbajabiamila mediated the strike motion by the Federal Capital Territory chapter of the Joint Well being Sector Union (JOHESU)/Meeting of Healthcare Professionals and a menace by the Nigerian Labour Congress/Commerce Union Congress to close down the nation over a gasoline pump worth hike, respectively.
Between 2019 and 2021, the Gbajabiamila Home engaged in a sequence of “parliamentary diplomacy” to douse the xenophobic assaults on Nigerians in South Africa, whereas the Speaker visited Ghana in September 2020 to mediate within the controversial $1million capital requirement for overseas enterprise house owners’ disaster, and his profitable internet hosting of the first Convention of Audio system and Heads of African Parliaments (CoSAP) in Could of 2022 to assist provoke parliamentary options to growth challenges in Africa.
Speaker Gbajabiamila’s interventions just like the COVID-19 response by the Home, the suggestions on Twitter ban in 2021, the speedy fixing of the Electoral Act 2022 to maintain the democratic course of on monitor, and the well timed transfer by the Speaker not too long ago to hunt an finish to the disaster between Nigeria and overseas airways over their ‘trapped funds’ within the nation, are all however a number of actions on a protracted listing of interventions too vital to disregard!
“Our nation’s biggest useful resource has all the time been the Nigerian individuals. We’re right here at this time on a mission to salvage Nigeria”, the Speaker acknowledged.
As his personal contribution to the seek for options, Speaker Gbajabiamila shared with the viewers how he sponsored the Pupil’s Mortgage Invoice, simply handed by the Nationwide Meeting, to ascertain an schooling financial institution that might give interest-free loans to indigent college students.
A number of the provisions of the invoice embody: a moratorium of two years, post-NYSC, hoping that the graduate will get a job; the mortgage doesn’t appeal to any curiosity; and the applicant should be really indigent, who can’t afford to go to highschool on their very own.
“We’re all indebted to the Speaker for his steps…No Nigerian youngster must be disadvantaged of schooling for lack of means,” the previous president stated.
Correct funding of tertiary schooling was a suggestion that ran by the size of the summit, although all individuals additionally agreed that funding alone wouldn’t routinely tackle the myriad of issues confronting the system.
ASUU President, Osodeke, nevertheless, held the view that the federal government might certainly fund tertiary schooling on their lonesome by the technique of companies akin to Tetfund or by growing further schooling tax home windows.
Moreover funding, virtually all of the individuals agreed that empowering the educating employees by capability constructing stays probably the most potent options to getting the colleges again to their glory days.
For Gbajabiamila and the Home, identified for holding guarantees, a journal detailing all the problems examined on the summit can be printed by the Workplace of the Speaker in a matter of days to function a doc for public motion.
–John Ameh, is the Particular Assistant on Media Analysis & Documentation to the Speaker, Home of Representatives.
