The ninety-eighth inaugural lecturer of Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Professor Nkemdilim Nnoyelu says the overbearing interference of governments, its regulatory agencies or bodies on the autonomy of Universities is the first and most singular factor hampering the development of public university education system in Nigeria.
Nnoyelu, a professor of industrial sociology and industrial relations stated this while delivering the lecture he titled: “From classroom teachers and researchers to union activists: The predicament of academics in Nigerian public Universities”.
Professor Nnoyelu who is of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology of the Faculty of Social Sciences of Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, explained that the practice where Ministries of Education and the National Universities Commission, NUC, determine curriculum benchmark is strange to global standards of the University system which was designed to be insulated from government control so as to guarantee academic freedom.
The University Don advocated the review of the mandate of the NUC to give Universities independence to determine their content, syllabus and curriculum without being restrained by the ruse of regulation and standardizations.
As against the wide criticisms that usually follow when public university lecturers embark on strike actions, Professor Nnoyelu also said that the strategy, however, remains the only way to slow the activities of the public university education system in the country.
He said that any milestone that has been recorded so far in the public education system in Nigeria can be tied in one way or the other to trade unionism.
Professor Nnoyelu acknowledged that strike actions should be the last resort and should be rarely used, but stated as well that in a country where leaders rarely find solutions to matters of public concern until they become matters of industrial disputes, strike actions remain the only way to twist the hands of leaders to take urgent action.
Decrying that public universities in Nigeria have been shut for a total of seven years in the last thirty-one years because of strike actions, Professor Nnoyelu said the only way out from the reoccurring industrial disputes in the education system is for governments to institutionalize collective bargaining and ensure quick implementation of agreements with unions.
Later while decorating the inaugural lecturer with the lecture medal, the Vice Chancellor of the University, Professor Charles Esimone commended Professor Nnoyelu for speaking truth to power and for proffering important solutions to the challenges facing the University system in Nigeria.
Professor Esimone represented by his deputy in-charge of academics, Professor Joseph Ikechebelu explained that the culture of inaugural lectures has been sustained to promote academic and research excellence in the University.
Inaugural lecture, considered as a professorial homily, is a very important milestone in the life of an academic because it marks the celebration of the academic attainments of the lecturer by the University community.
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