Onwuka Nzeshi
24 July 2007
Abuja — Pro Unitate, the Schools Management Organisation (SMO) floated by the Unity Schools Old Students Association (USOSA) has said that the passion to restore qualitative education to unity schools across the country, rather than economic benefits, has been the sole motivation behind its decision to manage the 50 unity schools, concessioned to it under the Public Private Partnership (PPP) initiative of the Federal Ministry of Education.
Chairman, Board of Trustees of the Association, Engineer Elens Eigbokhan gave the explanation in Abuja while reacting to criticisms trailing the scheme. He said the unity schools, being strong national brands have become an emotive factor, deliberately distorted by some persons either out of ignorance or mischief, in order to discredit the recent reforms in the education sector.
The Alumni Group plans to give the schools a facelift, in compliance within the concession. Besides the proposed launch of a N1 billion endowment fund, a high powered secretariat has been set up to manage the schools under a comprehensive plan of action that will ensure the realisation of the core objectives for which the schools were established.
Under the action plan, all the schools will be provided with electrified classrooms and information communication technology (ICT) facilities to enhance teaching, learning and networking. Each of the schools will also benefit from a virtual library project while two commercial banks, Spring Bank Plc and Access Bank Plc, have also offered to open branches in all the schools to provide modern banking services to both staff and students.
The concession granted the Pro-Unitate Group and other Schools Management Organisations had received knocks from several quarters, including influential politicians and pressure groups. While the Chairman of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Ahmadu Ali described the involvement of the private sector in the management of the unity schools as a 'dubious privatisation' of yet another national heritage, the Kano Forum, one of the groups that sought to manage some of the schools, but lost the bid, accused the Federal Ministry of Education of discrimination in granting the said concessions.
According to Eigbokhan, such accusations stemmed from ignorance about the details of the PPP scheme and the process leading to the concession of the unity schools. He explained that, while privatisation involved a change in ownership or transfer of title, the PPP initiative for the unity schools was only a management scheme. He stressed that the PPP proposal for the unity schools meant that the brand and ownership of the schools remained the property of the people of Nigeria, held in trust by the Federal Ministry of Education.
"With all due respect, the Chairman of the People's Democratic Party spoke from the point of ignorance. You can't join issues with somebody who is not (saying) the truth. If a man says the unity schools are going to be privatised, I know he is not talking about the PPP because, in the case of the privatisation of the Kaduna and Port Harcourt Refineries, where monies were paid, the investors are now asking for a refund, but in the case of the Unity Schools, even if the government decides to terminate the scheme tomorrow, nobody will ask for any refund of money because no monies exchanged hands.
"The Kano Forum people were pre-qualified; they participated in the bid process and unfortunately they lost. For us it is not a do or die affair. If the government wakes up tomorrow and says it doesn't want the PPP again, we will still continue to do what we have been doing for the various schools in the past years, in terms of using the auspices of the Old Students Association to upgrade teaching and learning facilities in the schools," Eigbokhan said.
The Federal Government, he said, has no intention whatsoever of selling, privatising or eliminating the unity schools but has repeatedly assured Nigerians that the conceptual role of the Federal Government Colleges as 'a model' for secondary education in the country, to ensure promotion of quality education and national integration, remained unchanged. He however observed that due to long years of neglect, lack of use of statistical data for proper planning, general degradation of values in the society, poor teacher quality inadequate attention to the welfare of teachers, as well as dilapidated physical facilities, the schools have stopped serving as the roles models they were set up to be, and therefore needed to be refocused.
"The issue of the reform of unity schools is not about geopolitics. To do that is to reduce the history of our nation and the future of our children to manifest and patent travesty. We must return theses schools to their lost glory. When they fall, the standard of education in our nation falls. It is not too much to say that to whom much is given, much is expected. This is where the USOSA comes in passionately, being the beneficiaries of the unity schools, particularly during the glorious days. For us in Pro Unitate, it is a heritage which we cherish with so much nostalgia and for which we have now come out in service to restore," Eigbokhan said.
The Federal Government of Nigeria, within the last 40 years, established a total of 102 Unity Schools in various states of the federation in order to encourage learning for academic achievement; education of the whole person and promotion of self-understanding and national integration.With the passage of time, there was a general deterioration in the quality of education in the country which led to the gradual decay in the schools' infrastructure as well as the decline in academic performance. Based on this, the government, under the auspices of the Federal Ministry Education, initiated the PPP for them. USOSA put in the bid for all the Unity Schools (less Kings and Queens Colleges) out of which 50 of the schools were concessioned to it for management purposes. The concession is for a period of 10 years in the first instance.
However, there have been a number of concerns, including job security, access to quality education for the poor; fears that raising standards in these schools cannot be achieved without charging high fees, thereby turning the schools into elite institutions for the rich and powerful and fears that the role of the schools as national integration instruments will be destroyed.
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