ABSTRACT:
The research is set to examine Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) strikes and academic performance of students in Taraba State University (TSU) Jalingo. The research employed multistage sampling technique to select the faculties and the departments from where one hundred (100) respondents were selected, questionnaires and interviews were employed to draw information from respondents. The findings showed that the incessant strikes action by ASUU in Nigeria have disrupted the academic calendar of Universities and this has affected students’ academic pursuit and performance100% of the respondents have experienced ASUU strikes and 75% admitted that ASUU strikes have had negative influence on their academics. Almost 75% believed that government can find a lasting solution to the problems of ASUU strikes through prompt and rewarding dialogue that grants the request of ASUU timely. The study suggests and recommends that university students should engage themselves in tutorial classes or self-study during the strike action to keep them abreast with academics at resumption, their parents or guardians should ensure that they encourage students engagement in academic activities rather than domestic chores while the strike last, the members and the executives of ASUU should employ other industrial dispute strategies to express their grievances rather than embark on indefinite strike action which obviously paralyses student’s academics. The Nigerian Government should also employ the method of prompt dialogue and grant the requests of ASUU in time to prevent erosion and total breakdown of the educational sector.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
- Background to the Study
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) is a Nigeria Union of University Academic Staff, founded in 1978, with a history of militant action. Strike, is a work stoppage caused by mass refusal of employees to work. An student performance is the outcome of education, the extent to which a student, teacher or institution has achieved their educational goals.
University worldwide is regarded as the citadel of learning, the fountain of intellectual development and a ground for the production of leaders of tomorrow. According to Ike (1999) a university fulfills, one major function, it is a knowledge and value provider, in other words, a university progresses when it is able to provide knowledge and value and when it is not properly managed by the administrators and staff, it then fails in its function of providing knowledge and value. This according to Nwankwo (2000) explains why merit has been the watchword in the university system – an institution in which a student must first be certified worthy in character and learning before being admitted into the Honors Degree.
The role of universities in human capital development, research and technological innovation cannot be under evaluated. All over the world investment in University education is a critical component of national development effort. Nations today depend increasingly on knowledge, ideas and skills which are produced through researches in the universities. Nations invest in university education because society expects it to contribute to national development in three principal ways. First, society expects it to university to produce the highly skilled personnel in technology, engineering, management and other professions; secondly, universities have the responsibility of producing their own corps of academic personnel that is, the intellectual resource pool that will, through scientific research generate new knowledge and innovation to solve developmental problems. Thirdly, universities produce teachers, administrators and managers for other levels of human resources development institutions.
All these have left an unfavorable mark on the academic performance of the University students also affected the academic calendar of the university as whole
1.2 Statement of the Problem
The demand of ASUU is that government should fulfill an agreement it reached with it in 2009 on how to save the nation’s universities from collapse. On the other hand, government is proposing a piecemeal selective approach. There is no doubt that education is too vital to the survival of any nation that it should be treated as a subject beyond politics or evasive polemics. It is not deniable that Nigeria is presently not doing enough, by world standards, in the funding of her children’s education. As far as the government is concerned, there are other competing items for the limited funds available. This has caused serious altercations between government and ASSU resulting into persistent industrial strike actions.
The incessant strikes action by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has inadvertently affected the academics of. university students; it usually poses a lot ofchallenges to their study duration, performancein examinations and their final grading. Thestudents are kept away from school for a longtime; most of them are completely cut off fromacademics as conditions at home may not favorproductive and rigorous academic exercise. Thestudents and their parents become frustratedbecause of long expectation of schoolresumption that is far from sight. Some of thestudents while at home doing nothing getengaged in other things other than academics. Insome cases they are easy recruits for criminalactivities, such as armed robbery, kidnapping,and rape. This has made them a problem to thesociety peace and order in Nigeria. Howeverthe extent to which ASUU strikes affectsstudents academic performance require a closeexamination and this research is geared towardsexamining the extent to which it has affected theperformance of students particularly in Taraba State University.
