Martin Luther King, Jr. once said and i quote; "The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that"
Strike is defined by Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary as the refusal to work as a protest. The online free encyclopedia, Wikipedia put it in a more refined way by saying, strike action is work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work. It goes further to say, a strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. The strike discussed in this piece is not different from the afore-mentioned. Its just that it is restrained to the educational sector of Nigeria. Some Nigerians however described strike as an annual festival whereby students are not allowed to go to school. To a very large extent, the definitionhttp://www.nairaland.com/1489254/strike-wrong-approach-nigerias-educational is right as it has become a 'norm' for the occurence of work halt in at least once in a section in the education sector in the country within the twelve months in a calendar year.
Strike action definately has its pros and cons which i am going to critically analyse in course of this piece. However, this write-up is intended to show reasons and logically conclude that strike is a wrong approach to the educational problems in our dear nation Nigeria as it is widely belived by many.
When a strike is initiated by the work force, it is always known to be a fierce battle between the employer and the employees; the government and the association under which the workers are registered. The 'suffering grass' whenever these two elephants clash are the students who are directly at the receiving end of the imbroglio. Thus, leaving several damages on the students whenever such occurs.
Among several effects of strike include time wastage and unnecessary delays. The most saddening aspect of the strike action atimes is that the reason why it is being initiated is not really worth it. Thereby, leading to a battered academic calendar. A disrupted academic calendar definately gives birth to the shrinking of activities when the school resumes in order to meet the set target for that session. This affects the students adversely in terms of their performances in tests and exams since they never expected such changes. Not only this, unemployment is a 'time-bomb' for graduates that were repeatedly affected by strike during their student days. This is caused by their inability to meet up with the set requirements. Most jobs these days are tied to age limit, so graduates that have overstayed mostly owing to no fault of theirs, become too old for jobs of their dream. This is quite pathetic!
Students engagement in non-fruitful and criminal activities have been the case during strikes. Like the popular adage says "an idle mind is the devil's workshop" some students are drawn into nefarious acts during this period which are capable of destroying them and unleashing terror on the peace of the nation. Aside this, some students become social network veterans, some turn into statues of idleness, bunch of parrots, backbitters, gossipers and busy bodies while some turn themselves into sleeping bags as if been bitten by tse-tse fly. They eat as if life is all about eating. This set of students you see in schools after the strike with voluminous body mass blessed with unnecessary fats(perhaps with no shape), all these against their wishes.
The Loss of credibility is a grave danger applicable to our schools as a result of incessant strikes. Its quite unfortunate these days that only few foreigners will prefer to send their wards to study here in Nigeria as a result of the back drops from strikes while we move our children en-mass to schools abroad thereby exporting the fund that is supposed to be expended locally to economically add values to our system. What about the psychological effects of strike on students? A psychologist and lecturer, Department of Educational Foundation, University of Lagos, Dr Sola Aletan explained that the unplanned breaks definately affect students negatively. He compared this scenario to when an athlete running a 400metres race is abruptly stopped when he started the race, he said such situation affects the athlete greatly and will take time for him/her to regain his/her speed and confidence as it was levelled before. Same thing applies to students that are sent away from schools due to strike.{1} These and many other damping effects of strike are what students are exposed to.
Funny enough, the bad effects of strikes are not 'enjoyed' only by students that have been deprived of their right to education, the striking workers too share part of the experience. Workers feel the nostalgia with a tinge of guilt, arising from shrinked responsibilities. Though the same work force called for the strike, but i can tell you that not all its members are always in full support of the action. Also, academic workers who are still in their 'evolving process' too get affected during strikes. Example of this are the postgraduate students that lecture in universities. ASUU strike also grounds their study.
Unfortunately, no one is talking about the poor masses that worked in the closed environment. I mean the motorcyclists, drivers, traders, tailors, carpenters and others that make ends meet by their activities in the academia. Most of these people are below-average Nigerians that have family members who look up to them to survive owing to the penny they get from their toil in the now closed academic community. Now subjected to unemployment and poverty that will not even be make-up for when the strike is over unlike in the case of the academic workers that get paid even when they refuse to work. Too bad!
Unknowingly, even the erring government that has failed to accede to the demands of these workers is not safe too from the impasse. Prof. Umukoro of Department of Theartre Arts, University of Ibadan wrote in one of his articles that was featured in The Guardian Newspaper dated Wed. Oct. 21, 2009 that "no nation anywhere in the world can rise above the quality of its tertiary education. Show me your universities, and I shall tell you what type of nation you are", this clearly emphasizes the importance of an academic calendar devoid of unnecessary breaks. All sectors of our national life are largely dependent on education. The future of the nation are the young sharps currently in schools and as such, the kind of education policies put in place now dictate the quality of life experienced and their performances later on when they spread to all sectors of the economy thereby re-affirming the centrality of education to national development. The effects of strike will obviously jeopardize the dream of having a great posterity who will be better leaders. This long-term effect on the nation is unfortunately not critically assessed.
Having talked about the expensive effects of strikes on our educational system in Nigeria, i won't shy away from also discussing the benefits these incessant strikes may accrue ONLY if successfully geared towards its intention that masses were made to believe. Amongst the benefits are better infrastructures in our schools, improved welfare packages for the workers in the academia thereby making teaching pleasurable to the teaching staffs and also indirectly help in impacting the desired and required knowledge on the students but what most people don't understand is that there are other better ways to address the educational problems in Nigeria other than the popular strikes.
The major protagonists of strikes in our schools, the government workers in the schools are not just multi-directional in their approach. They are always mono-strategic in their mechanism to articulate their demands, a strategy that is not only impotently archaic but also has been found not effective in our black continent to a very large extent. Not even only that, the touted genuineness of their agitations and action is quite questionable. If truly strikes could rescue the Nigerian educational system, then our institutions should by now be one of the best in the world. If the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has been on strike for about thirty(30) months in the past ten years and we are still where we are today, then it obviously means it is a wrong approach to Nigeria's educational problems.
Permit me to digress a little please, i keep asking myself that if our fore-fathers could achieve independence for our dear Nigeria without bloodshed as it was the case in many countries, then, why is it so difficult for this generation to try another better method to approach our educational problems other than the incessant strikes which is the popular and non-effective usual way? Srike is just been counter-productive and unhealthy for our education!
At this point, i am more than sure without mincing words that it is now very conspicuous that the dangers incessant strike actions pose to our education and even on the economic life of our nation both in the short-run and long-run outweigh its benefits. I hereby plead with the stakeholders of this sector; the workers, governments, students and others to let us come to this realization that strike is not the right approach to our problems. I want us to engage more practicable and effective ways to tackle the problems in our education that will ensure the much anticipated better face for it rather than the accumulating damages the sector suffer.
Dialogue remains a very viable and effective tool in this instance. The successful progression recorded in many areas of life today cannot be applauded without stating that they were achieved through dialogue, round table conferences and other diplomatic avenues. More importantly, sueing the erring government to a law court is another viable way i am sure will diplomatically curtail the aggravating danger of strike in our educational system if given a trial.
I implore the governments at all level to also try as much as possible to help realize this feat; quality education. A very good policy has been 'prescribed' by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation(UNESCO) to help address the problems we are facing in our education sector most especially in Africa. This allows at least 26% of the nations annual budgetary allocation go to the education sector as against the 9% currently committed to it in Nigeria. {2}
Adoption of this will go a very long way in salvaging the current disposition and also help to achieve the greatness we crave for. This is very possible in Nigeria if our leaders are truly dedicated to the transformation project. Not also leaving out the work forces in the sector, the likes of ASUU, ASUP, COEASU, NASU, SSANU and so many others, i want to charge them to be more dedicated to their duties, proving critics wrong and being sincere in their constructive and preventive demands.
The students have over the years shown resilience and even solidarity to struggles that were aimed at solely benefiting the workers, same gesture should be reciprocated in hard times when the students are faced with oppression and problems beyond their limit. I therefore plead with the work forces not to repay the students' patriotism at this time with damaging strike actions.
I therefore reinstate that strike is a wrong approach to Nigeria's educational problems.
Special Acknowledgement:
★ 2013 Nairaland Educational Debate Competition Judges
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