FG And Private School Fees

The apparent disconnect between the standard and the cost of education  in parts of Nigeria should worry every well meaning citizen. People cannot continue to pay heavily for education and have very little to show for.

At the collapse of many public schools across Nigeria, some years ago, the private sector rose to the occasion and built schools, some good, some pitiable and all under little or no control. These schools charged high fees without fear and gave the impression that the higher the fee, the higher the quality of education. This cannot be entirely correct.

Over the years, the number of private schools have increased and so have the fees, because education has become more of a money-making business than anything else. Some have become so elitist that they charge up to N700,000.00 per session.

Apart from how the situation had continued to alienate children of the poor and encouraged private schools to raise fees so as to be seen as having quality, what the private schools are doing to education in Nigeria needs to be understood.

After about a decade of operations by the private schools, the result of WASCE and NECO have not been better. In fact, the sheer crudity expressed on the streets easily gives away the level of education in parts of the country as very low.

That nobody seemed to care about the brazen extortion in the private sector in the light of the fore-going had served to worry quite a lot of people. For some low income earners, the bulk of their pay go to the education of their children and leaves them with nothing to be human.

But the statement recently that the Education Minister had decided to take up the issue of high fees being charged by private schools in the country has come as a soccour. The long silence in this area had tended to suggest that anybody can start a school, decide on how much to charge and how to account to nobody.

While we expect public schools to be brought up to date as being envisaged, it must not be forgotten that education is one service that  government alone cannot provide. Yet, its social service status must not also be lost, especially at this level of Nigeria’s development.

Because education is about the best service any government can give, our country must take time to plan for it, regulate it and make it accessible to all. Experience has shown that the ones that are left behind often become the available hands for the militias.

We expect that government would provide the enabling environment for education dissemination as well as set the standards that both the public and private schools must not fall below. No Nigerian child should be allowed to be trained in a school where there are no qualified teachers, requisite facility and enforceable standards.

The Minister must ensure that every conceivable vice in the private schools is identified and eliminated. It is no more secret that a lot of the private schools that charge so high do not have qualified teachers. A lot of them have no play ground for physical development training, while many of the proprietors and school managers have no requisite academic background for the office they occupy.

Perhaps, this should also provide the opportunity for the Minister to canvass for education subsidy for the Nigerian child, subsidy for nursery and primary education in Nigeria. Unlike the subsidy on petroleum, this will serve the interest of all and develop the literacy level of the country in as short as two decades.

This will also lift the burden off parents and enable them to participate in the economy. Indeed, if the child is well educated and has no decent home to live in, the realities of the social lack would make a nonsense of the classroom education received.

While the private schools would want to come together and make effort to thwart the plan of the Minister, we think that one of the best things this administration can do for the country is to regulate the education sub-sector with a view to achieving purpose at both the public or private schools.

We look forward to the removal of the emphasis on money, but on a system that would provide properly adjusted and prepared minds to take the country to the next level.