IT'S A NEW YEAR....

2011 is here...good time to start up the blog again...

Firstly I'll like to wish every reader a Peaceful and Prosperous New Year...Peace in our hearts, families and the nation...and Success in every endeavour we embark on...

In this first week of blogging, I'll be posting some essays I wrote a few years ago...they are still relevant in this time of CHANGE and I really hope we stay focused on the real issues at hand.

THE DESTRUCTION OF PUBLIC SCHOOL IN NAIJA

In the last decade, there has been massive damage to public education in Nigeria. From the Primary to the Secondary to the Tertiary, the impact of mismanagement, neglect and rot that occurred during those eight long years (and continuing now into ten years) can be felt. There were widespread changes almost every fortnight without a clear plan to take education out of the doldrums; from efforts to privatize the over 100 unity colleges to the obliteration of junior secondary classes in these unity colleges to obscene tertiary fee increases and other adverse changes too numerous to mention.

Sometime ago I came across a newspaper article that showed that Loyola Jesuit College was the school with the best WAEC result in the country with the 1st, 2nd and 3rd best students in the 2008 WAEC exams coming from the school. This certainly was not the case a decade ago when the Federal Government Colleges (including the Kings College, Queens College and the Suleja Academy) were tops in the nationally organized exams. It is sad that there are stories of woeful performances today in these FGCs and it is even far worse in other State Government Schools. Facilities are in disrepair in these schools, there is a gross lack of qualified and competent teachers in these Colleges and the libraries are empty of books.

Another aspect is the cost of quality education. The Nigerian Constitution affirms that education is a fundamental human right and urges government to work towards achieving that ideal. However affordable education is a mirage in our society today. For example, the Loyola Jesuit College (a supposedly mission/charity school) quoted above charges N630,000 per session per student and other private schools charge up to N2 million. This is clearly not affordable to the middle class worker in the country. We need QUALITY PUBLIC SCHOOLS. I am not talking about elite schools (where students are taught horse riding and fencing) but places where children can have the education they deserve, read books and understand the world they live in.

Education in other countries is not a reserved privilege of the rich and mighty because knowledge is power. Countries like Singapore, Japan, Korea and even Mauritius have made tremendous progress in standard of living and GDP growth simply because they muster a highly educated and skilled population where quality education is free up till 18 years of age. Countries like the US and the UK ensure that students have access to student loans which they can pay over a long period of time. For example, in the UK, there is a 3000 pound ceiling as the highest tuition a university can charge UK citizens and also the UK government provides student loans up to 4000 pounds per annum which can be paid over a stunning 25 years.

We need a revival of public education in Nigeria and let us not fool ourselves into thinking that the private sector should bail us out because education is a basic responsibility of government.