Nigeria: We Must Resist Commercialisation of Education

6 September 2009
opinion

As the federal and state governments, in conjunction with unscrupulous school managements in the country, conclude plans to abdicate their responsibility in properly funding education on the students and their poor parents, Nigerian students must be ready to resist this obnoxious policy. This is the only way of making governments reverse their decisions and commit pubic resources to public education.

Already, the education minister, Dr Sam Egwu, has been quoted more than twice reiterating government's interest in handing over public education to the vagaries of market forces i.e. commercialization and increase in fees. Also, just few weeks ago, the executive secretary of National Universities Commission (NUC), Prof. Julius Okojie was quoted in a public forum enjoining university administrators to hike fees to N150, 000 per student. Okojie was a former vice chancellor of ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo's Bells University, where students are paying over N500, 000 as fees; while his predecessor, Prof. Peter Okebukola is the current pro-chancellor of Osun State University, where a student is paying nothing less than N300, 000 as fees. This goes to show the real interests of education administrators in Nigeria - towards sale of education at market prices even when their textbooks define education as a social service.

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