In your opinion what do you think Government can do to raise the falling standard of education as the system currently has been undermined by numerous problems Viz-a-viz poor learning infrastructure, paucity of fund, cultism and examination malpractice, massive brain drain e.t.c.
Sir, with due respect to the government itself, the government is the government for all of us. That is why we are clamouring that the Government should partner with the private sector. You know am a member of ASUU and I know that ASUU has clamored severally. That we have the oil companies, what is the genesis of militancy in the Niger-Delta. What are we talking about blue-chips companies that are not oil-involved in this country.
In developed countries of the world what we find is that you know these companies, blue-chips companies, the oil companies where it marginates, the private sector, the banks name them they have a stake, they have a stake in this sector.
They have a way of trying to ensure that they support government. Government is government of all. The private sector benefits from human capital development. So what are we not saying the basic truth is we say government fails sometimes by way of government not providing the requisite you know budget, budgetary allocation by the World bank for education.
It is also fundamental for us to tell them that they should speak to these private sectors to do the right thing. Today we are talking about communication, communication is the highest paid in terms of, they pay highest to their workers. Way back it was oil companies, sometime back it was the agricultural sector in the north by way of what we had.
Way back we are talking about Leverbrothers and all that, PZ and all of that. Now it is communication, what are they doing? What are they are pumping into education? What is involved? Is it wrong for you to grant loans to students? Now students are trying to go to law schools these are former students. Now you are talking about a medical students who cannot afford a stethoscope.
Now you are talking about a student who has not eating well and needs some monies to survive now we are talking about parents who can’t take the child from primary school to the secondary and so the child is a risk-kid by selling pure water on the street to augment income, now we are talking about the UBE scheme which had been test-ran in some states and we have people who call themselves politician legislators, executives, Senior Special Assistants (SSA’s) and they are not thinking about that and we talk about companies that suck our oil, that we spend so much in terms of recharge cards for G.S.M. and you can’t plough back to the society and you keep accusing government, government.
Is government not for all of us? Government is for all of us. So what we expect is that government or governance is for you and they and I should try. Everybody should try put it hands on deck particularly the private and the public sector.
The emergence of private schools in the state, some of which of have been described as mushroom schools as a result of their involvement in Examination malpractice for external examinations like WAEC & NECO e.t.c. Do you think the emergence of these private schools have addressed the inadequacies experienced in public schools?
In the first place let’s be very candid public schools started failing and that gave rise to what we call private schools. And I must tell you it was the failure of the public schools in the past that made the Comrade governors am talking specifically in Edo State to come up with one philosophy, let me resuscitate the public schools and ensure that the private schools should be taken care of by the people who are necessary.
The privates schools came not just to resuscitate the failure and the atrocities perpetrated by former government on public schools but to make monies. Private schools’ owners came to see education as an industry. As an industry to make monies. And like what I tell people education is not to make monies.
Education is to develop the mind to create monies through manufacturing but people now saw, the private proprietors now saw it as a money-making venture. And let me state a caveat clearly too on this point they now started evading the taxes of government, collect so much to what, to produce what you so called the education in privateness but at the same time does not give the same quality because those in higher form when they are well equipped intellectually and they have the certificates to teach these people and give them the best the same private proprietors do not pay the right amount to these teachers. So at a point if private is equitable to what we call the schools of the mission.
This missionaries, though they are private handled over to, to run things we believe that because of religion they do what, they do the right thing, but the private schools pay less resources collect more from parents and ensure they want to get the best in the name of making profits. Profits are not an aspects of education like religion and like the medical practice. So I think the private schools came with an intention to rectify the wrongs of the public schools but have failed in their own focus.
The alarming rates at which private schools are now springing up in every nooks and crannies of the society calls for concern. Do you think government should regulate the issuance of licenses to individuals seeking to establish private schools even when many eventually fail to achieve the prime motive of setting-up such private schools?
Let me call on a bit of what I said before and that is the reality. If what I said by way of the private schools being profit-making machines they evolve right now, I told you, I said they came to savage public schools, initially they started well at the end of the day they became machinery for disgrace, exam malpractices extortion of the students so much so that many things, we could not survive. So if you now ask or we are trying to answer the question of control, regulation that is where the government comes in.
There is nothing wrong even in economics we know that you have what you call price control mechanism. In those good old days we had it. It is in the same vein we are talking about the private schools and even the public schools.
I have seen where the governor and individuals have gone round to do what, to ensure that public schools are controlled. Public schools are not only controlled by way of seeing that we should have some basic minimum standard. Students should not sit on the floor that is in the public schools but the control we are saying now is that some schools that you call private schools are habited by students under just one block and roof with the intention of malpractices. You shouldn’t register all, we have what you call monitoring officers from what you call the Ministry of Education.
In those days we have what you call the C.I.E. or so. And these C.I.E’s are located in what you call the local government. From the local government to the state you report, what do you do monitor to see if the schools just like we see at the university level, polytechnic level, and college of education level in other words the tertiary level that you have NUC to come and accredit. We should have an accreditation monitoring team committees in this Ministry to check if the private school is worth it.
Education to be very candid is not all about getting what it is, there are certain things that students are losing. In those good old days when you go to public schools like how the Comrade governor is trying to resuscitate public schools, when it is 3’oclock when you leave school you go to prep if you are boarding house student you take your siesta after your siesta you go for what you call recreation. Those who are playing football are playing football those who are doing whatever you know lawn tennis then at the end of the day in the evening you say you going for prep, these are the things we call composite and holistic education.
Just at that level, what right now do you find in the so called private schools are talking in terms of the secondary levels they are not there. There are people they get what you call montessori education without the recreational things that makes them emotionally, psychologically and intellectually balanced. Intellectually they are very balanced, the others they are lacking and at the end of the day you see that they are very intelligent in the university but lack the emotional aspect, the recreational aspects. No field to play football but yet you pay so much to get it because you are being warned. So what we are saying is that the government has the task, the responsibility and the control to ensure that we do the right thing.
That is why it is because all of these are lacking that is why most students come from private schools to be very candid are the people who get involved in certain vices, cultism because no sociability beyond the fact that my father was able to pay it means that you are from a class.
They are easily lured but the man who went through public schools you know adequate, standard that is what am saying is exposed to so many things the values, the morals, the ideas that I must move on. We need control and the government should not fail in her educational policies to ensure that control is exerted.
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