The threat lately issued by the Federal Government against university lecturers who abscond abroad after enjoying official scholarship for various training is yet another manifestation of the huge problems besetting the education sector, and the seeming frustration of the government on how to handle the problems. While the government can be blamed for having failed over the years to give education a befitting attention, a factor that has spurred the syndrome to escape abroad; there is no justification for educated Nigerians who have entered into a binding agreement with government to jettison that agreement and stay put abroad.
Those involved know that their action constitutes a big blow to efforts to lift the education sector, and to that extent, show palpable irresponsibility on their part. Government’s threat to deal with the defaulters certainly has its difficulties to implement, but it is worth government’s effort to try to cut and recover its cost. All the same, government needs to address the root causes of the ‘japa’phenomenon, as a deeper attempt of resolving seemingly intractable education concerns. This will surely entail a re-examination of many faculties of the very important education sector.
Ostensibly scandalised by the growing number of Nigerian university lecturers staying abroad after studying with Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) sponsorship, the Executive Secretary of TETFund, Sonny Echono, has threatened that the board would make the absconded academics refund the money spent on them or be repatriated. He confirmed that TETFund had disbursed over N400 billion to tertiary institutions nationwide for sponsorship. He regretted that the amount is enormous and that TETFund has requested the absconding lecturers to refund the money spent on training them abroad; failure to comply would lead to the organisation resorting to the hard measure of forcefully repatriating them back to Nigeria.
We concur with TETFund Executive Secretary that the absconding lecturers should refund the money expended on their training abroad. Failure to comply should result in the government repatriating them back to Nigeria. Similarly, academics in the universities who, in one way or another, aided and abetted the absconding lecturers should be punished as well.
TETFund was originally established as the Education Trust Fund (ETF) by Act No. 7 of 1993, amended by Act No. 40 of 1998 (now repealed and replaced with the Tertiary Education Trust Fund Act 2011). Its objective is the rehabilitation, restoration, and consolidation of tertiary education in Nigeria, including building physical infrastructure for teaching and learning, and training and developing academic staff.
Unfortunately, TETFund has been subjected to ridiculous abuses over the years. First and foremost, the guidelines for benefiting from the fund are grossly violated by different university Vice-Chancellors, Deans of Faculties, and university managements who allocate the fund to university academics or staff who do not qualify or meet the guidelines for benefiting from the fund. Then, the lecturers who eventually get the sponsorship refuse to return home after studying abroad. Thus, TETFund has become an engine of fraud, a conduit pipe to steal or mismanage funds set aside for university development.
It is sad that the absconding lecturers have refused to reciprocate the goodwill of the Federal Government and return home to contribute their quota to the development of the universities after benefiting from TETFund. By callously absconding after enjoying TETFund sponsorship, the lecturers have betrayed the trust and hope reposed in them as partners who could team up with the Federal Government to contribute to the overall development of the education sector. By fleeing Nigeria after benefiting from TETFund, these lecturers have shown that they are irresponsible, unethical, and a disgrace to academia in Nigeria. If the government has invested a significant sum of N400 billion in the training of these academics, it is baffling that they would abscond without paying back the huge sum of money spent on training them abroad. By refusing to return to Nigeria after benefiting from TETFund, the lecturers have shown that they lack character and integrity. They have brought shame not only to members of their respective families but to Nigeria as a whole.
Some contend that, given the toxic environment in our various universities and tertiary institutions, the absconding lecturers are justified in their refusal to return after benefiting from the TETFund. However, this argument is flawed upon consideration that the lecturers had entered into a contract with their respective universities, committing to return to Nigeria after their training abroad under the TETFund sponsorship. Therefore, it is unjust and unfair for the same lecturers to renege on the contract after benefiting from the TETFund sponsorship.
There is no doubt that the refusal of the lecturers to return to Nigeria after benefiting from the TETFund is part of the erosion of values destroying our universities and tertiary institutions today. Therefore, our universities and tertiary institutions are overdue for total cleansing or overhauling. The point is that education is one of the fundamental benefits of human civilisation. In fact, it ought to be the bedrock of the nation’s developmental processes.
In his deep reflection in 1952 on the concept of a university, John Cardinal Newman produced a seminal work with the title: ‘The Idea of a University.’ In that work, Newman, whose ideal was modeled after Oxford, Cambridge, and Trinity College, United Kingdom, writes that the university is a place for the diffusion of universal knowledge and molding of the character of those who attend it. Even though Newman’s thesis on the university has been trailed by scathing criticisms, the fact remains that the university is a citadel for the transmission of culture for human flourishing.
Supreme Court Justice Chukwudifu Oputa (of blessed memory) was of the view that proper university education transcends mere academic education and instead entails the education of the whole person. To him, a proper university education is one that informs character, inspires good behaviour, encourages balanced judgment, and trains the body, mind, intellect, and will.
To be continued tomorrow.
