Ever since criminal neglect on the part of federal and state governments rendered public schools not good enough for imparting knowledge, the private schools have stepped in to fill the yawning gap left by the former, but with mixed results.

From a handful of mission, religious and community schools, private schools as a business venture are now opened to any one with the resources to establish one. So preponderant have they become that they are now critical in the acquisition of knowledge at the primary and the secondary levels, with parents at whatever level of the economic ladder seeking to offer them to their children.

Private schools offer a veritable alternative to their clientele by providing the needed quality that has become sorely lacking in public schools. But what started as a genuine and altruistic necessity to provide better alternative is in danger of turning into merely a source of income for some unscrupulous proprietors who pay little attention to the need for improved performance of their students. There is ample proof of this in the perennial bad results in public examinations as proprietors pay scant attention to the important issues of recruiting qualified teachers and providing other teaching aids. More disturbing however is the ever-increasing fees levied on parents by these schools, even while the quality of service is dwindling or even downright poor. The levies include lesson and textbooks charges. Some even charge fees not in the Nigeria currency but in Dollars, Pounds and Euros, a practice that is against the law in Nigeria.

The over all impression is that owning a private school has become a way to smile to the bank! Clearly this extortionist tendency has to stop, otherwise there will be no end to it. Of course, it could be argued that the parents have a choice, as they could always revert to the public schools where fees are not as exorbitant, whenever they want. That however would be a cynical attitude to the matter ignoring the crucial importance the private schools have come to occupy in the scheme of things. One way to ensure that private schools are worth their while is to make it mandatory on them to meet the required laid down standards. The difficulty here, however, is that with public schools themselves so far below the acceptable standards, who will adjudge the private ones for being below standards?

Still, there is the need to enforce the minimum standard requirement. There are, to be sure, many private schools across the land, whose standards can measure up to the best of their kind anywhere and which equally provide the kind of instructions comparable to the best. But they are in the minority. The majority are however a woefully inadequate lot, exploiting the failings of public schools to take advantage of parents seeking the best education for their children. These are the ones that must meet laid down standards which should include locating the school in a conducive environment, complete with recreational facilities, employing qualified teachers in each subject being taught and other such requirements. Along with enforcement of standards should be the important matter of pegging fees. The situation whereby primary and post primary school fees far outstrip what obtains in many private universities make one wonder whether too much leash has not been given to these schools to operate as it suits them.

Right now the thinking that a good school should cost a fortune, for which many families are willing to incur debts must not be encouraged. Many people in high positions in government and private enterprises were beneficiaries of relatively cheap education. Effort should therefore be made to keep it affordable. To achieve this, the governments would have to ensure that schools also attain the standard they have laid down, resulting into forcing down fees drastically both in the public and private schools, to the benefit of everyone.