Members of the National Association of Academic Technologists (NAAT), remain one of the major stakeholders in the Nigerian University system. This is premised on the fact that globally, technologists are stakeholders in University system. Not minding the classification of the members of NAAT by the National Universities Commission (NUC), which is saddles with the regulations, control and administration of Nigerian Universities, as non-teaching, unarguably they remain an important organ of the university in the delivery of the core mandates of teaching, research and community service.
NAAT’s members are professionals, found working in all the tertiary institutions’ laboratories, workshops, studios and farms. No Faculties or Colleges of Science, Agriculture, Technology/Engineering and Basic Science/Medicine will be academically worthy or complete without the solid presence of Technologists. Invariably, the technologists are managers of laboratories, workshops, studios and farms with a view to promoting the teaching of students, conduct research and provide community service.
If going by the definition of ‘to teach‘ as explained in the Advanced English Dictionary, then technologists are teachers. The Advanced English Dictionary stated ‘to teach’ as to show, declare, demonstrate, instruct, train, assign, prescribe, direct, warn persuade. It also stipulated that ‘to teach’ is to pass on knowledge, especially as one’s profession and to act as teacher. Hence, since the technologists in their various areas of disciplines in the universities demonstrate, instruct, direct, in the strives of passing on knowledge, which they have acquired to students, they rightly falls in the teaching category. While the lecturers remain the commander of the lecture rooms/classrooms (audio), the technologists are in-charge of the laboratories, workshops, studios and farms, where they demonstrate the applications of the theories learned in the classrooms, whereby students are trained on hands-on-training (audio/visual). Therefore, technologists and lecturers perfectly complement each other in the process of teaching and research in every universities across the globe.
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), which is the umbrella body of Nigerian Universities lecturers procedurally, on the 14th of February, 2022, declared a month warning of industrial dispute (strike) and rolled-over same for another 60 days, when the government did not take actions about their demands. With the full comprehension of the complementary roles of the lecturers and technologists, members of NAAT, thereby, considered it expedient to equally declared a 14-day warning of industrial dispute (strike). The declaration of the strike was devoid of any form of bandwagon strides. However, it arose from a sincere and matter-of-fact, borne out of the need to save the soul of the Nigerian Universities system from total seizure (death).
It came to a point whereby members of NAAT felt uncomfortable to sit and just watch the situations of things nose-diving to a more deplorable state. It got to a point where NAAT members could no longer pretend that all is well with the Nigerian tertiary educational system. A typical Nigerian university is grossly lacking in basic laboratory, workshop and studio infrastructure that could even pretentiously provide semblance of training to a science, engineering, agriculture and medical student! The laboratories, workshops and studios are filled, that is where one found any, with obsolete equipment and instruments that cannot be employed to teach or train students to be competitive with today’s global standards. The training and re-training of technologists with a view to meeting up with the ever changing technological world is significantly lacking.
The Federal Government of Nigeria, through its various agencies on tertiary education like TETFUND, has not considered it a priority to train and re-train technologists to a commensurate level with its counterparts in the core teaching profession for effectiveness of the system. The continuous of this act will not augur well for the system because of the production of half-baked graduates that will be well-grounded in theory but lacking in basic practical tutelage. This cannot and will not develop any nation.
What about the remuneration of technologists? It is nothing to be compared to that obtained globally. Honestly, acting on available data, Nigerian technologists are poorly remunerated. Since their take-home cannot take them into the areas of developing indigenous technologies and innovations, it is a loss-loss for both the government and the technologists. Obviously, the country cannot make any progress in the areas of technological breakthrough when the condition is not made conducive due to the fact that the brains are not being nourished adequately for thinking.
The morals of technologists are at the nadir: the lowest point ever currently. And on a daily basis, the morals keeps ebbing even as the technologists remain the most ”endangered species/profession” in the university today. The lack of the opportunity to rise up to the peak of one’s career is quite discouraging and suffocating. This is one major reason for the continuous “brain-drain” of the profession and why the profession is greatly endangered. The conversations of many technologists to the core teaching profession in the university remain a cancerous cell that is devastating the profession. It is disheartening to know that since 13 years ago, when the famous 2009 FGN/NAAT Agreement was signed into action, the item of the movement to CONTISS 14 and 15, like many other items also, remain a mirage because the government has not deemed it necessary to effect its implementation.
Thirteen years counting, members of NAAT are yet to renegotiate the 2009 agreement in government flagrant to dishonour, disobedience and neglect of the four years window for fresh negotiation. Therefore, members salary remains literarily stagnant for almost one and half decades. Yet, inflation keeps rising and reducing the purchasing power.
Apart from the general issues of the non-payment of the arrears of the consequential increment of the new minimum wage, the non-payment of promotion arrears to the deserving, the above remains the core demands which NAAT as a Union is putting on the table of government for immediate action.
At this very point, therefore, members of NAAT will not shy away from its fight. The laboratories, workshops, studios and farms, that gave members of NAAT their relevance to the system are in shambles, agonizing and in pitiable states. Hence, we will not continue to sit down and watch. It is of no doubt that members of NAAT really meant well for the system and the nation at large, therefore, its demands that the system should be improved and not be killed like the primary and secondary educational systems. The improvement must be holistic by those in authority. Having taken a careful and comprehensive study at the financial position of the country, and making critical assessment, NAAT is convinced that setting the priority right, the union is not asking for too much.
Even as the Federal Government intimidatingly and illegally commenced the implementation of the “No Work, No Pay” rule for members of NAAT, members shall remains unfettered, undeterred, unmoved, unshaken to the draconian and tyrannical deployment!!! More than ever before, the union members are now resolved to continue to prosecute the just course of struggle with every single weapon in the arsenal of the union! The struggle is just beginning. Therefore, the only way forward for the NAAT Strike is to move FORWARD!
Aluta Continua!!!
Victoria Acerta!!!
Oyesola Oyelade, a technologist, NAAT member and former NAAT Chairman, UI Branch
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