In a couple of weeks ago, there have been outcries coming from the public since a directive was issued to university staff to enroll into Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) and the apparent resistance by Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU. The public is alleging that academic staff of Nigerian universities typically holds multiple appointments, at the expense of the unemployed. This allegation exposes the ignorance of majority of the public on the structure, needs and workings of the academic institutions. On the other hand, the ASUU’s resistance is rationally seen by many well-meaning Nigerians as unjustifiable. Hence the need to educate the public on the peculiarity of academic institutions and call on ASUU to sheathe its sword.
The public must accept the fact that every sector has its own peculiarities. In the health sector for instance, hospitals are allowed to hire expertise in a particular field of medicine to work on temporary appointment as locum, visiting consultant, sabbatical etc. This is because not all the hospitals would have specialists in all the areas of medicine, in fact virtually none. Therefore these few expertise shuttles between hospitals to cater for the needs of special case patients. Similar to health, tertiary education, especially university system has its own peculiarities. Teaching staff recruitment is typically done based on the need of an academic department/faculty. Apart from permanent staff who are drawn from various field of specialisation of the department and the spread of rank in accordance with Nigeria University Commission’s benchmark, there are other types of ‘temporary’ academic appointments a department may require due to its peculiar needs.
These temporary appointments may include, but not limited to sabbatical, visiting, part time, adjunct, external examiner, external moderator etc. All of these appointments are part of condition of service as well as structure of almost every university in the world. It is not peculiar to ASUU alone. For example, sabbatical is a one year leave given to Senior Lecturer and above every sixth year. During the year, the academic staff will take up an appointment with another university or industry, with a view to gain new experience and widen the impact of the staff. Similarly, a department may be in need of an expert in the field of, say, Logistics Management of a particular higher rank, which all of the available ones might have been engaged elsewhere or the university may not afford to recruit on permanent basis. Such expertise are recruited on visiting Lecturer basis.
External examiner or moderator are another examples of peculiarities of university system, where experts are temporarily engaged to review students’ projects/thesis and examination question papers and marking schemes with a view to establish some external validity of the students’ final year projects, postgraduate thesis and assessment respectively. All of these are part and parcel of the university system and well endorsed by the very regulatory agency appointed by government to supervise the university system (NUC). Therefore the public must appreciate these facts and stop the exaggeration; otherwise it may be termed as envy!
The government too must unconditionally capture all the peculiarities of tertiary institutions, otherwise the standards will fall and quality of graduates will be at the lowest ebb.
On the other hand, I am yet to be convinced on the reason why universities should not be enrolled into IPPIS. I also could not come to term with a scenario where employee is dictating to employer how he should be paid. As long as the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation (OAGF) keep its promise of capturing all the peculiarities of university system and as long as the universities remain centres of excellence that are known and stood for integrity, professionalism and accountability, the universities, particularly ASUU should support the President’s initiative aimed at fighting corruption in public service and the university system in particular.
Dr. Faruq M. Abubakar writes from Emir’s Drive, Bauchi
The views expressed in this article are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect WikkiTimes’ editorial stance.
