Educational crises: Sorting, sexual harassment & allied matters

Students and police clashed in Peru last week as students protested an impending educational reform which would subject lecturers to annual appraisal. Their worry is that this may lead to job losses. Appraising lecturers is normal around here but my interest is that students are protesting a policy deemed prejudicial to lecturers. Nigerian students are not likely to protest in solidarity with lecturers as they view ASUU ‘struggles’ negatively because it automatically leads to ‘tenure elongation’ for them. But you may find students protesting against lecturers, as was the case by the female students of Creative Arts Departments of University of Lagos on 25/6/13 who carried placards against their lecherous lecturers who demanded sex for marks. As one of the placards lamented, their mentors had transformed into tormentors! Ugochukwu Ugwuanyi of wazobiaspot.com who did an online commentary on the incident linked it to cultism [lecturers are now on rampage because there are no more cultists to keep them on check], connected it to poor research output [lecturers have no time for research because they are busy running after the innocent girls, with their ready-to-fire instruments], found all lecturers guilty [arguing that the innocent ones allowed the randy ones to get away with it], and excluded female lecturers. Of course, this is the usual stereotype as the public sees all lecturers as lords of debauchery and dealers in handouts. This is coming barely a month after a professor was convicted in Zaria for making amorous advances at a married woman, sending love messages from ‘his own phone’.

But when I read this story [Daily Post, 27/6/13], I recalled other related incidents across universities that have come to my attention in the past one year. In a tier-1 federal university in the South West, a female student had entered a lecturer’s office, locked the door, brought out a pack of condoms and handed it over to the lecturer! In the same university, a student had approached a young lecturer declaring her love and asking what it would take to ‘capture’ him. In a state university, a lady had approached a lecturer and requested him to be her sort of ‘guardian’. The lecturer assured the lady that he would advise her on any academically-related issue but warned her to be careful with such requests because she was putting herself at risk with male lecturers. The lady never visited that lecturer until she graduated. There was also a case of a female professor who asked for settlement in kind and failing that, in cash, from a male PG student after which the student had issues with his results and protested!

So what is SH? Nigerians generally regard it as seeking sexual gratification [usually by the male] in exchange for favours. But legally, it is unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favours, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature when it becomes a condition for employment, employment decisions, affects work performance or creates hostile/offensive work environment. It becomes unwelcome when the person subjected to it considers it unwelcome. Instances include unwanted letters, telephone calls, sexual jokes, referring to an adult as babe, or honey, whistling at someone, touching an employee’s clothing, giving personal gifts, looking a person up and down (elevator eyes), staring at someone or following the person. Quid pro quo harassment is when decisions are based on the acceptance or rejection of unwelcome sexual behaviour. Furthermore, the harasser may not even know that the action constitutes SH and both parties may be of same gender. When staring, telephone calls, calling somebody baby or gifts become instances of SH, then all Nigerians will probably be in jail.

A learned fellow defined it as where students have to meet a requirement for a benefit that they have already qualified for by a person that has authority over this benefit; the ultra vires requirement being disagreeable to the beneficiary. And failure to comply will result to very damaging deprivation or loss – which cannot be recouped elsewhere – to the beneficiary.

Now, back to the issue at stake. The fact is that there is basic SH in the universities – seeking, compelling or offering sexual favours in a quid-pro-quo manner. The compelling variant is the most illegal and abhorrent. Many female students are also not as innocent as they sound; they offer! But even if they offer, the lecturer is not bound to accept. Even when there is a consensus, amorous relationship between lecturers and students is not desirable; it creates a dysfunctional learning environment. Only a rare breed can be objective in grading the scripts of a student whose garden he ‘cultivated’ the day before. Those most at risk of compelled SH are the borderline female students; those whom I have argued severally have no business being in school because they don’t have the capacity and discipline. But how do we separate SH from other lecturer-student relationships? I recall that even in 1977, one of our lecturers married one of the students. So how did they get to that stage if they didn’t start somewhere?

Yes, lecturers harass students and students harass lecturers. Both cases involve both sexes. I tend to agree with Ikenna Okonkwo, the moderator of our online forum, that in 70 percent of the occasions, it is the students harassing the lecturers. Either way, however, it is not right – legally, morally and professionally. But that is the trend in banks, Nollywood, in the markets and the civil service. It is a Nigerian problem. Back to the universities, no lecturer dares harass an intelligent and committed female student. No lecturer will fail a student who answers that 1+1=2. Even when the student is empty upstairs, there are avenues for civilised protest when one is being hounded for sexual favours. The problem is that most of them will not protest because they don’t know what they have written and they are willing to negotiate for marks wherever possible.

All these have to do with ‘sorting’, ‘a nickname for academic corruption’. It enables deficient students to gratify their lecturers so as to obtain good grades while uncooperating students are frustrated. The sorters are mostly deficient and unserious or those who are so busy with ‘other matters’ that they don’t have time for studies. This involves male and female students and lecturers. An online source claims that ‘sorting crept into the Nigeria university system in 1992’ during the days of IBB and was because very meagre salaries were paid to university lecturers. It is a two-way affair; initiated by students or by lecturers mostly through their student agents.

SH or sorting in whatever guise is bad. Female students do offer but some are compelled. Even if it is one person that is compelled, that is bad enough. Students should be ready to do what it takes to make their grades – hard work. And anyone who is harassed can protest and get justice but she or he must go to equity with clean hands. 

Muo is a lecturer and management consultant in the department of business administration, Olabisi Onabanjo 

University, Ago-Iwoye

muoigbo@yahoo.com

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