Inadequate classrooms, offices affect UMYU – ASUU Chairman

Abubakar Umar, ASUU Chairman of Umaru Musa Yar’adua University (UMYU), Katsina, in this interview, speaks on the problems in the university such as inadequate office accommodation for lecturers and lecture halls. Excerpts:

How would you describe the teaching environment in Umaru Musa Yar’adua University?
Let me give you an example with this faculty, initially Faculty of Science was designed to have five departments but when the construction was completed, we found out that it has four departments. The five departments are Geography, Physics, Biology, Chemistry and Mathematics, incidentally all the other departments, excluding Geography, were allocated a wing out of the four wings with Geography asked to squeeze within this four departments, the Head of Department of Geography squats at Physics Department, some senior colleagues are also sharing offices. Physics, Math and Computer are equally sharing because they accommodate Geography staff. Same goes for the Faculty of Humanities, Education. Even the examination officer shares office with a colleague, so this is one of the problems here.

Does this development affect professionalism?
Well, you see when we mentioned offices in universities, we are looking at situation where by you have one port for internet connectivity, one for other connectivity within and outside, and so when you are sharing such things, definitely someone will not have internet access. It affects professionalism tremendously if two people have to share a thing.

What have you done, so far, to remedy the situation?
Without any fear of contradiction, the union must be applauded for its efforts. We have spoken and written to the management, hoping it will collaborate with government, because the management cannot do everything. We have reached out to the government also and during the just concluded action embarked upon by ASUU, we were lucky the government listened to us. The UMYU was allocated 2.8 billion by the federal government for building of hostels, 100 million was allocated for repair of existing theaters and laboratory, some of the money was meant for construction of new classrooms.
 
In terms of classrooms, theaters, lecture halls, I hope the condition is not as bad as that of the lecturer’s offices?
Actually, before the construction of the 1, 500-seat auditorium, the biggest we had could only contain 350 seats. I have a class that has above 1500 students, so during lectures we normally have one third of the class in the theater while all others are either outside or in their homes. We share theaters and classrooms. There is a course, historical geography, I go to Ibrahim Shehu Shema Centre for Renewable Energy to deliver it. We used to go there for lectures and we have to convert the students’ centre into a classroom, you can see the level of inadequate infrastructure affecting UMYU.

Is the increase in students’ enrolment responsible for inadequate structures?
 No, it is not so. The measure problem is that there was no stakeholders’ involvement in the initial stage, we had classrooms that were modeled after classrooms in the countries of Finland and Luxemburg, whose populations, put together, cannot be compared to that of Katsina State. There, the classroom will not have up to 35 students. In UMYU you have 140 or more. When you have a class meant for 40 students and you want to accommodate more that, it is impossible. Classes are there but they are too small to accommodate our students. In the university, we have general courses for all science students, these courses are worst hit in terms of population, you see a class of 600 and we don’t have a class that can accommodate that number.

What advise do have for the management, government and stakeholders?
Like I said, the problem emanated from lack of involvement of stakeholders, now that they are aware, I believe if any new project is to be done, that problem will be solved. Secondly, the government should be committed. Katsina gets a lot of money but we don’t know where the money goes. So let the governor come and consult us and we can help him to expend the resources judiciously

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