<div dir="ltr">
<h1 class="gmail-post_title">Those things FG holds tightly in dainty hands</h1>
<div class="entry-meta">
<span class="gmail-byline"> Published</span> <span class="gmail-posted-on"><a href="http://punchng.com/those-things-fg-holds-tightly-in-dainty-hands/" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date gmail-published" datetime="2018-02-16T12:35:18+00:00">February 16, 2018</time></a></span> </div>
<div class="examples">
<span class="gmail-button-addon">
</span></div>
<span class="gmail-button-addon">
</span>
<span class="gmail-button-addon gmail-hidden-xs-down">
</span>
<div class="gmail-row gmail-post_featured_image">
<a href="http://punchng.com/those-things-fg-holds-tightly-in-dainty-hands/" title="Those things FG holds tightly in dainty hands">
<div class="gmail-b-lazy gmail-b-loaded" style="width:100%;height:100%;background-image:url("http://cdn.punchng.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/24223049/Tunji-Ajibade.jpg")">
<div class="gmail-blurry" style="background-image:url("http://cdn.punchng.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/24223049/Tunji-Ajibade.jpg")"></div>
</div>
</a>
</div>
<div class="gmail-fcaption">
<span class="gmail-caption">’Tunji Ajibade</span></div>
<div class="gmail-row">
<div class="entry-content">
<p style="text-align:justify">Tunji Ajibade</p>
<p style="text-align:justify">The wheel of governance moves slowly in
every clime. Changing a status quo suffers the same fate; both happen at
a pace associated only with a coal-powered train. In Nigeria, we beat
all records. But as the reader knows, it’s not always for altruistic
reasons. Running of the so-called Unity schools by the Federal
Government falls under this category. Purchase of textbooks for primary
schools as handled by officials in Abuja is even more absurd. It’s not
for the first time that I call attention to these. Although in the past,
even a serving Minister of Education had strongly expressed
reservations regarding these misnomers, nothing has changed.</p>
<p style="text-align:justify">The other day, when officials of the
Federal Ministry of Education defended their 2018 budget at the National
Assembly, they, as usual, announced the amount they had set aside to
buy textbooks for primary schools. Once again, the question crossed my
mind, as it had done for years, “Which primary school does the FG own?”
This question shouldn’t be for the Federal Government officials alone?
It should be asked of the lawmakers who approve these funds year after
year. These are the same lawmakers who know that at the primary schools
they once attended, pupils now sit on bare floor and under trees to
learn. The Federal Government calls what it does in primary schools
“intervention”. How effective is it? How much does it contribute to the
development of education at that level, more so as it’s on record that
most of these primary schools don’t get a copy of the books which
officials claim they procure? In other climes, these are questions that
are answered through authentic research in order for any policy to be
pursued, especially now that every government needs to cut cost. Here,
it’s business as usual; no one asks questions. A reason to question how
seriously we consider reform that’s based on current realities.</p><div class="gmail-code-block gmail-code-block-1" style="margin:8px 8px 8px 0px;float:left">
<div></div>
<ins class="gmail-adsbygoogle" style="display:inline-block;width:336px;height:280px"><ins id="gmail-aswift_2_expand" style="display:inline-table;border-color:currentcolor;border-style:none;border-width:medium;height:280px;margin:0px;padding:0px;width:336px;background-color:transparent"><ins id="gmail-aswift_2_anchor" style="display:block;border-color:currentcolor;border-style:none;border-width:medium;height:280px;margin:0px;padding:0px;width:336px;background-color:transparent"></ins></ins></ins>
<div></div></div>
<p style="text-align:justify">Still, other items in the proposed 2018
budget from the education ministry make one ask more questions.
According to the breakdown, the ministry has set aside N5bn for the
provision of “security infrastructure” in the country’s 104 Federal
Government Colleges (unity schools). The funds, it is stated, will be
used for the installation of Closed-Circuit Television cameras and the
construction of perimeter fencing around the schools. Other items to be
procured with the funds are solar-powered street lights and
solar-powered motorised boreholes. Does it cross the reader’s mind that
these must be some exotic schools to deserve such high-tech gadgets and
huge expenses, this in a situation where pupils in most other public
secondary schools across the country lack chairs and desks? Note that we
refer to 104 unity schools that don’t admit up to 10 per cent of
Nigerian secondary school students. Nevertheless, the Federal Government
also planned to spend N19m on the establishment of language clinics in
these schools, which it said would be a part of the National Language
Policy. Other expenses include capacity building for librarians in the
schools, which will gulp N6,652,000, as well as the physical assessment
of their libraries, which will cost the ministry N6m.</p>
<p style="text-align:justify">It doesn’t stop there. The ministry will
also expend N10m on the deployment of counsellors to tackle anti-social
behaviour in schools it doesn’t own in the six geopolitical zones in
2018. Other projects in the line-up include the compilation and
dissemination of skilled-based pupils textbooks for Classes 1 to 6,
Junior Senior Secondary 1 to 3 and teachers’ manuals on nutrition
education for schools which would cost over N10m.</p><div class="gmail-teads-inread" style="margin:auto;max-width:850px"><div style=""><div class="gmail-teads-player" id="gmail-teads0"></div></div></div>
<p style="text-align:justify">Controversy has forever trailed the
business of pre-tertiary institutions that the government in Abuja
chooses to involve itself in. Arguments by Nigerians who are against it
are many. Those in favour have their views too. Promoting the unity of
the country had been an argument in favour of unity schools from the
outset. No problems with that. The challenge is that here we don’t move
on from whatever we start. We use the same reasons proffered back in
1960 to counter the realities of 2018. I’m for the unity of this
country. But I don’t think expending so much on just 104 unity schools
is the way to go about it. I think this nation has moved on, and there
are avenues other than some expensive unity schools which burden is
borne by the Federal Government to promote the unity of the country. In
any case, and as I had stated on this page in the past, we expend
resources to promote unity at one junction while we make a mess of the
same ideal at another junction when it suits us. Examples are around for
all to see. That’s one reason I’m not convinced the unity school
arrangement still serves its original purpose.</p>
<p style="text-align:justify">Equally, we know that our world has
moved away from governments that involve themselves in running certain
entities. It’s the position of the World Trade Organisation and Nigeria
has been a member since 1995. In fact, the WTO’s principles emphatically
encourage privatisation and liberalisation as the way to go. Western
nations have been the first to mostly conduct themselves accordingly.
The huge expansion of their economies, as well as a creative private
sector which propels the founding of internet-powered companies that are
some of the wealthiest in the world is traceable to the decision by
governments to leave business for the private sector to run. Britain,
like Nigeria, was once a staunch advocate of government’s involvement
in what the private sector should handle. Today, not even a Labour
government (ever pro-nationalisation) has the nerve to make government
run some businesses. Certainly, the Central government in London or in
Washington DC will not want to run primary and secondary schools as we
insist on doing in Abuja. What has been the outcome in those other
climes? Less load for the government at the centre, as well as schools
that are better run; schools to which many of the public officials in
Nigeria who argue in favour of Unity schools send their kids.</p>
<p style="text-align:justify">But, not everyone involved in our
education system has kept silent about the oddity that the Federal
Government has been involved in. Not every official has chosen to not do
anything about Unity schools that gulp a large chunk of the funds
budgeted for education by the Federal Government. While she was in
office, the former Minister of Education, Oby Ezekwesili, had undertaken
measures to ensure that a disproportionate part of our funds no longer
went to these pampered Federal Government’s secondary schools. When she
left office, some got the next government led by President Umaru
Yar’Adua to return to the status-quo. In government circles, where
entrenched interest caused the wheel of governance to reject
inconvenient change, Ezekwesili was almost a lone voice. That hasn’t
discouraged her though; she continues to argue that the current approach
to running Unity schools by the Federal Government isn’t sustainable,
and that it’s counterproductive to the overall health of the nation’s
education system.</p>
<p style="text-align:justify">It’s always been a source of concern the
manner we know the way to go but choose to ignore it. We refuse to
jettison what is no longer sustainable because of some sentimental
reasons we come up with. We have a Federal Government that is bloated.
It cannot fund its budget without borrowing. A Federal Government
expends much of what it borrows to fund annual budget on salary and
other overhead costs, more than it does capital projects. Yet, obvious
areas where it can shed loads such as the running of pre-tertiary
education are stubbornly retained. The other day, some lawmakers pointed
out on the floor of the National Assembly that the Federal Government
continued to establish its own universities based on political
considerations, without a thought for the cost implications. They said
this was the same Federal Government that hadn’t effectively funded the
existing schools, complained about dwindling revenue, just as it
asserted that privatisation was the new direction across the globe. No
doubt, there’s a need for a major turnaround regarding what the Federal
Government holds tightly that it shouldn’t. One day, we shall have those
who’ll be courageous enough to put their feet down and effect the
turnaround.</p></div></div>
<br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature">=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+<br><br> Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of <br> Dravidian Linguistics and Culture <br>Dept. of South Asia Studies <br>University of Pennsylvania<br>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br><br>Phone: (215) 898-7475<br>Fax: (215) 573-2138 <br><br>Email: <a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com" target="_blank">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/" target="_blank">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a> <br><br>-------------------------------------------------</div>
</div>