Increase University Lecturers’ salary in exchange for long overdue reforms – Moses Ochonu

It is scandalous to allow the current abysmal salaries of Nigerian public university academics to endure.

A situation in which a professor earns the equivalent of $300 is simply unacceptable and gives lecturers a plausible alibi for their failures in the core mission areas of the university: teaching, research, and service.

Whether some of the lecturers deserve to have been hired or retained in the first place, or whether some of them do not make an effort to teach, research, or mentor is a conversation for another day.

A worker deserves a decent wage. Lecturers, whether they’re good or bad, committed or not, are expected to teach huge classes and grade way too many exams, thanks to the spike in enrollments and Nigeria’s growing population of eligible and qualified applicants for university admission — the subject of another discussion. The salary should reflect the burdens and expectations placed on the lecturers.

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That said, it would be equally scandalous if, in the process of giving the lecturers their much-deserved and overdue raise, the government did not demand from ASUU or put in place, in exchange, a set of clear accountability metrics to solve the severe teaching, research, mentorship, and ethical lapses in the universities.

At the very least, the lecturers should be required to accept/concede the following in exchange for a deserved significant salary increase:

Student teaching evaluation protocol crafted by all stakeholders, including ASUU.

Minimum requirement for class attendance by lecturers.

A student bill of rights to protect students in their academic, supervisory, and mentorship relationship with lecturers, and to prevent abuses.

A well-defined rigorous standard of scholarship that emphasizes quality, ambition, and impact, and not quantity.

A new hiring process that rigorously vets candidates to ensure that only the best and most promising candidates committed to the craft of teaching and research and willing to uphold the rigors of the profession are hired and that those merely seeking a job and hoping to treat academic employment like a civil service job are kept out.

A radical, total curricular overhaul in all disciplines taught in Nigerian universities, as all curriculums and the material used to teach them are outdated.

The designation of some schools as teaching institutions, where teaching excellence is cultivated and nurtured as the primary criterion for promotion and professional advancement.

The designation of some other schools as research institutions and the corresponding establishment of high and clear research standards as the primary criteria for promotion and career advancement.

Clear guidelines for how supervisors should treat postgraduate student supervisees, how promptly chapters and outcomes should be evaluated and feedback provided, and what constitutes unprofessional interactions between supervisor and supervisee, etc.

Instituting a merit pay raise system to recognize, reward, and encourage research and teaching excellence among the faculty. This would be an annual exercise in addition to whatever salary ranges are already negotiated and agreed upon. This would ensure that lecturers who distinguish themselves in teaching, research, and supervision, are rewarded financially. It would also be an incentive for those who currently simply do the bare minimum to aspire to excellence.