Dr Egwu must defend unity schools

By Ayo Akinfe

Over the last few weeks, the heated topic of Nigeria’s 104 unity schools has been in the news again. Education minister Dr Sam Egwu has been told by legislators to abandon proposals to sell off the nation’s elite federal government colleges and the House of Representatives’ committee on education has been told to conduct an investigative public hearing on the matter.

In all fairness to Sam Egwu, he inherited this problem from his predecessor Dr Obiageli Ezekwesili, the erudite lady more popularly known as Madame Due Process. In its current format, this debate is at least four years old and basically centres around the unavoidable subject of funding.

During one of the heated and passionate debates on the subject, Madame Due process revealed that as much as 70% as some of the expenditure in her ministry went on unity schools. She added that to address the serious problem of over 30% of school-age children sitting at home, some of that money needs to be diverted towards providing education for the have-nots.

One must concede that this is a compelling argument but alas, what Dr Ezekwesili was proposing was nothing but a Band Aid solution. What she should have told us is that Nigeria is simply not spending enough on education and the solution to her problem was to increase the overall education budget. Basically, we should fund unity schools and provide for the have-nots at the same time.

Current public spending on education is Nigeria is estimated at 5% of gross domestic product (GDP), which places us above the average of developing countries but slightly below the average of developed countries who are spending around 5.4% of their GDP on education. We must bare in mind that Nigeria has a paltry GDP of about $200bn compared with say Bangladesh’s $330.8bn for a similar sized population or Brazil’s $1.594trn but, however, let us leave that debate for another day.

If the policy assumptions contained in Nigeria’s 2007 10-year Plan are to be maintained, Nigeria would allocate around 7% of GDP for education in 2015 and about 8% of our wealth towards it in 2020. Even if we are to stick to these plans religiously, the figures still do not look good.

In 2007 for instance, Dr Ezekwesili pointed out that less than 18% of Nigeria’s N185bn education budget was committed to building additional classrooms, providing new books and training new teachers. The rest went on concurrent expenditure like staff salaries and day-to-day maintenance.

Given the huge disparity between African nations and the rest of the world, numerous international agencies have called on our governments to commit as much as 15% of GDP towards education. In the case of Nigeria, our literacy rate stands at about 57% but in many neighbouring countries it is as low as 40%. When faced with such odds, drastic action is required, which in my opinion, should include annual expenditure increases.

If Dr Sam Egwu like his predecessor thinks that by privatising unity schools, our education problems are going to disappear, he is mistaken. All selling off unity schools will do is destroy one valuable resource but fail to replace it with another. How many times have we been down this route in our history?

Being an alumnus of a unity school myself, I know that they are vital national assets, which no other of our institutions can replace. The national solidarity these unity schools provide, the way they serve as a bulwark against primordial and ethnic sentiments and the spirit of Nigerianess they engender, are irreplaceable.

Tafawa Balewa built the first three unity schools in Warri, Sokoto and Enugu and since then, they have expanded. After the traumas of the Nigerian civil war, the Gowon regime decided to multiply them, having realised the need for a cement to bind our youths together. Selling these schools could erode many of these gains we have achieved in the pursuit of national unity.

Unity schools cleanse Nigerians of any narrow and primordial interests they may have been infused with as children and foster the concept of one indivisible country. Given that pupils attend federal government colleges during their formative teenage and adolescent years, these unity schools provide a vital foundation that is hard to come by later on in life. Unity schools also admit pupils irrespective of socio-economic background. Would private sector owners not consider the ability to afford their exorbitant school fees the primary criteria for admission?

If these national icons are sold off, there is nothing stopping their new owners from scrapping all that unity schools stand for and in the process, throw away these cherished values and hard-fought gains. Among other things, unity schools admit pupils based on quotas allocated to each state so they are not ethnically lopsided and probably more importantly, our federal government girls colleges were introduced to bridge the gender gap in education.

One of the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals agreed at the Millennium Summit of World Heads of States in New York in 2000 was gender equality with particular regard to access to education. Has it occurred to those promoting privatisation that new owners of our federal government girls colleges could decide to scrap the unique principle they stand for?

If Dr Egwu is strapped for cash, he should press for more money from the cabinet rather than turn inwards. It is his job to fight for more money for his ministry and when it comes to annual spending reviews, he should make the compelling case for education. That is what the education minister is there for.

I believe unity schools should remain in the hands of the federal government and should be publicly funded. Selling them to fund the shortfall in education is tantamount to cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face.

Dr Egwu, we are relying on you to get us the required funding from the government. Any education minister who cannot do that should really begin to look at his position. What is he in office for if he cannot fight his corner?

Ayo Akinfe

aakinfe@aol.com

Robot  # 1 | 07.03.2009 08:28

Dr Egwu must defend unity schools By Ayo Akinfe Over the last few weeks, the heated topic of Nigeria’s 104 unity schools has been in the news again. Education minister Dr Sam Egwu has been told by legislators to abandon proposals to sell off the nation’s elite federal government colleges and the House of Representatives’ committee on education has been told to conduct an investigative public hearing on the matter. In all fairness to Sam Egwu, he inherited this problem from his predecessor Dr Obiageli Ezekwesili, the erudite lady more popularly known as Madame Due Process. In its current format, this debate is at least four years old and basically centres around the unavoidable subject of funding. During one of the heated and passionate debates on the subject, Madame Due process revealed that as much as 70% as some of the expenditure in her ministry went on unity schools. She added that to address the serious problem of over 30% of school-age chil...Read the full article.

Law Mefor  # 2 | 07.03.2009 14:49

There are schools centrally run in advanced societies, just like our unity schools. If we are giving up ours, it shows we are nearing the end soon than we think. But that is not the point. The point is that Egwu is not in a position to stop it if it is the Obasanjo government policy on education. Remember Oby Ezekwesili almost sold them off but was delayed. As Yar’Adua is doing Obj’ s 3rd term, I don’t see why Egwu can help not completing what the administration started since its 2nd term in office. Further more, the pressure to sell the unity school is a reflection of the fact that the FGN has taken up so many responsibilities not done in a federal system. The FGN should not talk about unity schools. It should regain perspective by stripping itself down to the minimum responsibilities and return to proper federalism. Such analgesic measures like privatization without equity and popular capitalism will only yield further dislocation in the already disarticulated economy and polity. They are just begging the issues and compounding it in the process. What they need hands off is resources so that states can take up the maximum responsibilities of development, just as the Regions did in the 60s and recorded the catalogues of firsts even on African scale. Awo couldn’t have built the first TV in Africa without funds, could he?

britroyal1  # 3 | 07.03.2009 18:46

Absolutely not. As a product of King's College, I can tell you that the worst thing that ever happened to that once great institution was the meddling of the federal government. Its mismanagement of schools like King's College, St Finbars and Methodist Boys high school is a crime worthy of a Nuremberg trial. They have become shells of their former selves with the barest of resources. They should be privatised so that emphasis is once again placed on quality and standard.