Tuesday, September 13

The School Fees Cry! (2)

Friends, followers and readers! I felt  the need to send in a Part 2 of this 'controversial' issue of school fees o! I received lot of very passionate responses/comments, both on the blog and by email. Thank you. Oh such passion! :-)

However, my focus is not on the rich, do they even groan? And even if they do, a change in lifestyle, as recommended by most of you,  is their remedy.
The focus is on unaffordable fees, at least by the poor parents, and those who really, genuinely cannot afford to send their children to school. Those who are thrown into a panic when a new term approaches, who do cry and go hungry,  because they have to put in so much for their children to have a bright future. Do we deserve this from the government? Has education taken the back seat (obviously) in the agenda of the State?

The consequence of this huge fees is that the children get on the streets! In fact, right now one of our gateman in our house is so young  that I feel a great pain each time I see him. He is getting money together to write JAMB! I cant bear the fact that he has to take such a dangerous job just to survive.
Should we talk about the 'affordable' schools? Those are run down, there are no books, no science equipment, the teachers are not trained, they are poorly paid (and/or are owed months in salaries) hence, have no motivation to teach, please, what do you imagine children under such conditions are learning? 

School today is not what school was for those of us who are parents/older...Should we wait on the government? To do what? If not, what can we do? It is evident that some of the future of Nigeria is wasting and deteriorating in the streets, and from what we see, I doubt things will get better. Yet children must be educated. The issue here is exorbitant school fees.
What shall we do...

..(to be) free oh??

2 comments:

  1. I sometimes think I am off the hat, because for me (unlike many nigerians) I believe in enterprise and the spirit of good business to make the changes needed for growth in the country. No, I am not a business woman (not yet anyway) and I tremble at the thought of picking up the gauntlet and starting out on my own, but I do admire those who do, the courage with which they hold onto their dreams and make it happen, consequent upon which the jobless have jobs, other businesses are born from the original etc. I admire enterprise. I think it is wrong to wait on government to do everything. But that is a discourse for another day. There is something amiss in our polity and until the people who have the head and heart start moving to make the changes we are groaning about, we are going to continue griping about what is going wrong. For me, all we need from government in regards to education is a fixed policy, a standard educational system as a guideline for those who understand and know the business of teaching to work through creating schools that are worth their weight in gold. Then let the government leave the entrepreneurs who know what to do to start the business of educating. Yes it is expensive, yes it is insane (and the greedy ones will always cash in on what they feel is a cash cow) but I believe once the ball gets rolling, the real champs will stand out and we may not even have to pay so much; for example, if one group of schools is known to produce results year in year out, it can set off a franchise effect in that the schools could have branches everywhere....oops, sorry, let me not go farther because I am a dreamer and this is Nigeria after all. *sigh* lol

    cheers

    Mary (Omo Jesu)

    cheers

    Mary (Omo Jesu)

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  2. Mary!
    Wonderful and detailed comments. Thank you.
    I dont want us to read these blogs on school fees, make comments and move on. We should be able to do something more concrete. How do we, in our own little way, push the government to have a fixed policy on education? There is a problem if the government doesnt think that this is a big enough issue. I believe its in 'not waiting on the government to do everything' that caused private schools to start to crop up! The former obviously made a hash of things.
    Herein lies my confusion fa.
    (I am right now even thinking what exactly the govt has done that actually worked...seamlessly. Whew.

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