By Jamila Nuhu Musa
Gone are the days when school inspectors were feared by teachers, headmasters and principals of schools, visits of such government officials were not lost to even. For the simple fact that they had power to decide the fate of schools in those days, so much so that they could cause a school to close down. They forced headmasters and principals of schools to be on their toes in dispensing their duties as expected because any report to the contrary translated to decisive decisions that could mar the school's reputation in the eyes of the authorities and the community in which such schools were located. So goes the story and that was then when a viable inspectorate division of the ministry was alive to its responsibilities.
"But now the story is different because officials of the inspectorate division have been compromised. Now we have a situation where most schools are hardly inspected while the authorities concerned take reports submitted by inspectors without verifying the facts. If you just sit in your office and accept, hook, line and sinker report of an inspector you are bound to fail".
This is the contention of the Minister of state for education, Barr. Nyisom Wike, during an interactive session with journalists at a forum organized by the Nigerian Pilot/Newsworld Leadership forum in Abuja. He was speaking on issues bordering on basic education in Nigeria and the way forward.
Wike recalled that the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) once said it could not employ Nigerian graduates and translated it to mean that Nigerian graduates are not employable because they do not have what it takes to be called graduates. This is largely because their education was bereft of good foundation and the situation remained so. Thus, Wike asks "If basic education is not right would it not be difficult to get it right at the tertiary level?
He admitted that the basic infrastructure to make basic education right has been lacking for a long time, there is also the issue of lack of commitment on the part of teachers, headmasters/principals, parents and students as well as government at all levels. "Governments over the years are responsible for most of the failures; we must say the truth as it is so that we can move forward." Wike said.
The Constitution provides that it is the responsibility of states and local governments to cater for primary education but the Federal Government fund it expedient to provide some forms of intervention to enhance the process. Still, what we have in our schools is continued decay in leaps and bounds, examples of which are roofless school blocks, poor toilet facility, making pupils and students to relieve themselves in bushes when nature calls, poor laboratory equipments, lack of instructional materials, and the teaching of pupils under trees to mention but a few. However, the decay in basic education system is no longer news.
Trading blames and buck passing by various governments have been the order over decades in establishment of a viable basic education in the country. The recent move being the pushing by governors for direct access to the Universal Basic Education (UBE) funds, though the issue has now been put to rest according to the Minister of education for state, Nyisom Wike who said "most of the governors have now accessed over fity someth some funds to the tune of N5bn
There have been mounting pressures on President Goodluck Jonathan by governors in the country to amend the Universal Basic Education (UBE) Act, to relax its strict guidelines and conditions. But Wike said various state governors have now accessed more than 50m funds he therefore indicated that there was no room for failure in transforming basic education in line with President Jonathan's transformation agenda. He disclosed that "As at the time we came on board UBEC had over fifty something billion funds unassessed by the various state governments . We had to discuss with them to let them know that the funds were just lying in the banks, why did we allow the banks to be growing fat when governors struggled to improve basic education in their states? He queried.
He therefore reemphasized that "Today I can tell you that most states have accessed their funjds up to 2011 but before we came most had not accessed up to 2009. Also every year federal government releases certain amount for the training and retraining of teachers at basic education, when we came on board we released not less than N5bn to the 36 states of the federation and FCT for the purpose. He disclosed that prior to the Jonathan administration, UBEC was of the opinion that some states abused the process of training and retraining. He also said that most governors did not know that such funds accrued to it or whether it was judiciously utilized.
Wike, who said his children attend Nigerian schools, said all hands must be on deck to move the education sector forward. The reason why he said federal government supplies books to schools, last year the federal government gave books to the tune of N7bn, flagged off training of 22,000 teachers by National Teachers Institute (NTI), last September and in the 2012, budget about 30 Unity schools are being considered for proper funding to enhance their status and redeem the lofty dream of our founding fathers amongst other projects.
On the part of the federal government, "we will be undertaking visits to schools from time to time to ensure judicious utilization of funds, see what is happening with a view to correcting the situation. It is regretful that some principals are not qualified to run schools. I once visited a school but the principal did not know me. What kind o0f principal is that? There are no teachers in the relevant subjects. I have told the President that 200 teachers must be employed for Maths subject. We will also stop the situation whereby administrators are made principals of schools. We are doing all these because when education collapses, government collapses", Wike said.
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