AYODELE OKUNFOLAMI argues for more investment in public education
Proprietors, parents and pupils have resumed this academic year in the most trying of times following increases in the pump price of petrol. Schools are struggling to survive. Proprietors now have to spend more powering their schools, buses and those with boarding schools will have to renegotiate with caterers. Parents that had already paid their wards' fees now find themselves recalibrating their options as pump price of petrol approached N1,000 days to school resumption. They have to reconsider the school bus option, extra murals, lunch packs, uniforms, text books and other accessories needed for their education. Others have made up their minds to change their children's school completely for another that is cheaper and closer home. Some are even considering changing jobs or resigning just to manage the situation. Children will now have to cope with staying at home longer as they wave their advantaged peers go to school while the privileged ones may begin to make new friends in new schools and begin to get used to emptier classes due to dismal attendance.
Since we had chosen to spend over N12 trillion on moribund refineries instead of selling them as scrap to those that will decommission them nor stop the corruption, opacity and illegality involved in the petroleum industry, we accepted the argument that removal of subsidy would balance the books. Payment of subsidy was stopped with the argument that the increased revenue would be invested in education, healthcare and infrastructure. Revenue indeed increased. So did taxes and school fees.
Today states, whose purview primary and secondary education fall under, have a 40% increase in allocation yet our governors would rather spend state resources on winning off-cycle elections in another state, fight their godfathers, expand the size of idle special advisers, sponsor pilgrimages, flood victims and other disasters with donations and pretend to love education by establishing ill-equipped and short staffed universities named after them offering unaccredited programmes. Meanwhile, there is no sense of urgency by 27 governors to access the sum of N54.9 billion basic education fund provided by the Universal Basic Education Commission.
Sadly, despite basic education being a right enshrined in the Constitution, one in three Nigerians aged between 6 to 15 does not go to school as many of them work to keep their families alive. Children barely tall enough to see through car windows are washing windscreens while others trek over 10km daily hawking. Nigeria is currently the capital of out-of-school children and these numbers will worsen as governors keep putting education in the back burner.
Edo extended the school resumption date "to safeguard our children's safety and well-being." Are children not safer in schools than on the streets? Kano said "urgent reasons" without giving a specific date for resumption. What is more urgent than our children's future? Abia, God's Own State, gave a Muslim holiday as excuse to delay reopening. Nigeria that has plenty public holidays. Shouldn't the academic calendar be sacrosanct? Niger, Adamawa, Borno and a few others are using floods that will definitely happen again to postpone resumption. Are we serious about combating child marriage, teenage pregnancies and other social consequences? Are we thinking about how competitive we want our children to be in future?
With leaders like Obafemi Awolowo, Premier of the then Western Region, who fully funded free education with revenue from unprocessed cocoa beans and Lateef Jakande, former Lagos Governor, who in his first 150 days in office built 11,729 primary and secondary schools unreal today, education in Nigeria will continue to be commercialized for those that can afford it. What we have today are at least 29 governors who pay debts with 80.7% of the Internally Generated Revenue garnered between January and June and going ahead to borrow a total of N446.29 billion within the same period.
And for Lagos that reviewed on the eve of resumption boarding fees for Lagos State Model Colleges to N100,000 from N35,000 with immediate effect, is quite unfair. If the government, that should be a model, is increasing fees, what do you want tax-paying private schools to do? Most off-putting is that the government memo signed by the Director of Basic Education Services, Olufemi Asaolu, wasn't scrupulous enough to give reasons for the sudden increase. This is not good from public technocrats.
Government's responsibility is to ensure that basic education be made available and affordable for all its citizens. For instance, the current Labour government in the UK intends to introduce VAT from private school fees to invest in state schools where 94% of pupils attend. What this simply means is that they have chosen to take public education serious and are specific on what the tax increases are meant for. It is because successive Nigerian governments at all levels have not made education a political priority that a mammoth majority of Nigerians choose private primary and secondary schools.
Private schools have the right to operate however, Nigerians should not be forced to patronize them because government neglected education the way we are being forced to patronize nonstate actors for their security and water vendors to shower. Another thing is that private school as a solution is unsustainable. If increasing prices of their products and cutting cuts of operations were enough to stay afloat, enterprises that are relocating or folding up would still be doing business. Similarly, continuously hiking fees and overworking poorly paid teachers won't keep schools in business forever. Look at private hospitals, they have become unaffordable for the poor and the rich that can afford them are going abroad for treatment. Already, car parks are getting barer in our private schools.
Most importantly, education is an enduring legacy that visionary societies invest in to drive homegrown developmental strategies for its own peculiarities and so should not be ceded to private entrepreneurs. When government controls the narrative governance become easier. Having parallel curricula, unorthodox teaching models or preparing children for foreign exams would not be institutionalized. Nigeria doesn't even have control on the contents of what is being taught. These young minds, if not being radicalized by faith-based schools, are made to consume so many extracurricular subjects that have no bearing with the aspirations of the nation or our envisaged workforce. In fact, many of our schools are preparing our children for other economies or at worst, a non-existing world.
What parents in collaboration with private schools have made a culture, is using these kids as marketing tools, fast tracking their education. They are made to regurgitate multiplication table at nursery and use textbooks a year ahead of them in primary therefore making primary six irrelevant. While in secondary school, they get involved in malpractices to get all A's in order to boost ratings.
While Australia found it easier to impose age limits on social media, Nigeria's Ministry of Education's proposal to make only adults sit for school certificate examination became contentious because they had since lost the plot. If not attempting to buy time Nigeria would end up stealing from them in waiting for admission, ASUU strikes and sitting at home unemployed, what is a 15-year old looking for in the university? Education in Nigeria is rudderless. There are no standards for entry ages, enrollment, admission, teacher-pupil ratio, school infrastructure, location, teacher recruitment, as all other related indices are all being violated.
Moving forward, parents should face the reality of the times. 60% of a child's academic performance is more dependent on the home he comes from than the school he attends. You are competing with nobody. Take your child to a school you can afford. As much as possible, let that child join his peers in school. Amenities of public schools may be overstretched but at least they have experienced teachers and legacy facilities that many private schools lack. Don't just leave your child's education to the school or lesson teacher, be involved.
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Proprietors should prioritize staff welfare. Teachers are the most important factor in the production chain. A teacher whose pay can't see him through the school term can't possess the mental fortitude to teach children whose fees he can't afford in a lifetime. The teacher would only end up compromising. Private schools should do away with all those coding, chess, designer uniforms, saxophone, excursions, and end-of-year parties that put more pressure on parents. Mathematics, English and the core subjects should be their concern.
Government on its part should take education serious. 8% budgetary allocation as against 15 to 20% as proposed by UNESCO for developing countries is too small for Nigeria to its space with nations already in space. It should fix the economy because it is only those that are alive that would think of school. It should come clean on subsidy. If gone how much are we making and where are the extra funds going to? If not gone how much is being paid, to whom and for what?
Money is not the only solution but parents are compelled to pay higher because cheaper could also mean lower. Education is a social good and so to maintain standards, government through the Ministry of Education and its agencies regulate in terms of standards, quality and supervision across all boards. Schools that don't meet up should be taken over not closed. Those not well situated should be relocated or students transferred to another school. Government should also consider the use of the CNG powered vehicles to transport students. These takes off the burden of cost of transportation. Also, the rice being shared can be channeled for school feeding. This will not only encourage children to go to school, it also solves malnutrition.
Okunfolami writes from
Festac, Lagos. @ayookunfolami
