Ex-minister decries rot in Unity Schools • Seeks amendment of UBE Act

FORMER Minister of Education,  Professor Chinwe Obaji, has called for an amendment of the Universal Basic Education (UBE) Act to make room for better funding of Unity Schools in the country.

She said the government should equally institute a standardisation of all the schools such that the quality of academic instructions and fees payable would be uniform across the board.

Professor Obaji made the call in a position paper entitled, ‘Unity Schools: Reinventing the Wheel’, which she delivered at the 40th anniversary of the Federal Government College, Okigwe, Imo State.

According to her, the magnitude of rot currently afflicting the unity schools can be attributed to undue interference of politicians who she said had hijacked and turned them into exclusive schools for the children of the rich and the privileged.

“They have shut out so many people, heightened the scramble for admission into the schools such that merit, which previously dictated admissions, got relegated as other pecuniary considerations took the centre stage,” she said.

According to her, because admissions have commercialised in many of  these schools, some unscrupulous elements within the system force schools to admit more than they have capacities to cater for, saying “infrastructure became over-stretched, academic instruction materials became inadequate and teaching staff became overwhelmed.”