Having spent more than two years as a Lecturer in a renowned private university, I did what academics are supposed to do: I taught, researched, supervised the undergraduate students and did an enormous administration but I always felt unsatisfied with the way the university is being set up and run. The sense of unease that I had begun to feel soon after my appointment gradually became overwhelming.
I suffered a lot at the start of each academic year. I rarely had an opportunity to draw and update my subject area expertise in my teaching, Instead, I was expected to be a jack of all trades, single handedly lecturing five(5) to ten(10) courses in a semester and performing other college’s administrative duties.
As an Academicians, if we are not in class, then we must stay in our various offices from 9-5pm. with one hour break in between, otherwise you will be ticketed or sanctioned, you can as well be given any assignment aside from your daily academic and administrative works which we have used to, failure to meet up will leads to failure to collect salary at the end of the month without complain. There is no room for research; even to carry out undergraduate practical for students is not possible because of unavailability of resources and time. No promotion and increase in salary except demotion and decrease in salary, especially, if you cannot be loyal to the University owner or play the politics behind the scene called ‘SAKA MAJE’ an act of painting a black object in such a way that it looks like a white object.
We are not allow to complain, even when Nigeria University Commission (NUC) comes around for accreditation of our programs nor were we allowed to censure them: we are used to the idea of borrowing staffs from other Universities in order to meet up with our usual number of unbalanced and qualified staffs, we all have to bow to the managerial imperative of treating us like irrelevant and unmannered human being who are just privilege to be in the system but not by merit and can be replaced anytime without any gratitude because they see it as a business center and not as academic environment where merit and brilliance are being considered.
As an academician, attending seminar and conference is not an easy task because they will not approve it and if they do, definitely your salary will be reduced by the number of days you are absent from school, let alone giving room for further study.
Meanwhile, the “impact” agenda, which now drives the research agenda, is foreign to the humanist values that attracted me to academia as a space of free, non-instrumentalist critical thinking. I feel part of an oppressive and unethical structure that demands the compromise of individuality and creativity in order to fit the system.
Though I remain jobless now and need money to sustain myself and my family till I get a better offer, but I have a peace of mind that am not part of those killing the educational system of my country and perhaps my decision to vacate my position will give room for someone else to come in but if they were to ask me for advice, I’d tell them to engage themselves in serious critical thinking before accepting it.
I will not forget the impact of my good student who introduced me to steemit and the steemians at large for your kindness and usual support in voting my posts and make necessary comments.
We remain one family.
One love.
Thank you all.