‘N200 education levy kept pupils out of school in Kaduna’

Primary education is an integral part of education. In Nigeria, the responsibility of primary  education is given to Local Government Areas and Universal Basic Education Board(UBEC). While, the local government areas are in charge of the teachers salaries and other emoluments, the Board is in charge of promotion, children enrolment, construction and rehabilitation of structure. Thus, findings gathered that each state in the country has a board(UBEC) as enshrined in the law.

A  recent statement from the  Kaduna State Ministry of Education put the number of primary schools across the state at 4,200, while it also stated  that at  the inception of the present administration under the leadership of Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, the population of  the primary school pupils stood 1.2 million.

This figure, according to a parent who gave his name as Abdul Jibo, was not encouraging. Jibo told the Nigerian Tribune that many children that were supposed to be in primary schools were staying at home doing nothing. This is as a result of a number of factors. One of the factors, it was gathered, was the levy of N200 introduced by the previous administrations  which made it difficult for parents to register their children.

A teacher who pleaded for anonymity remarked that ‘parents especially those in the rural communities found  it difficult to register their wards. He said many parents did not have the money, saying, “how do you expect a parent who cannot afford N200 to provide  uniform and even think of buying books.

Another reason is, many parents in the rural communities do not believe  in western education, instead, they send their children to  Arabic schools otherwise known as almajiri schools?”

The teacher stressed, ‘Western education is still not acceptable in most of the communities in Northern Nigeria. This is a serious challenge to the respective state governments in the region.’ It will be recalled that recently, in a public event, the Kano State governor, Dr Umar Abdullahi Ganduje, disclosed that there were about three million almajiri children in Kano State in a recent statistics conducted by the state government.

So, findings by the Nigerian Tribune revealed that children are preferred to stay at home and  assist their parents on the farm as a  typical farmer believes that farm work is better than education.

Similarly related to this is girl-child education  which  is  not encouraged. Girls are not encouraged  to go to  school because the belief is that a girl is only expected  to get married when she attends the age of  puberty.

However, with  the coming of the present administration of Governor Nasir el-Rufai in 2015, some of these perceptions are gradually fading away because of his passion for education. According to a parent,Hajiya Amina Tijjani, one of the first thing he did was to abolish the N200 levy. She told the Nigerian Tribune that the levy was a stumbling block  as most parents found it difficult to pay it. Collaborating her view, a community leader, Alhaji Dantili Abdullahi, said  many parents especially those in  rural areas, now  send their children to school because of the removal of N200 levy. But  it was the introduction of the feeding programme in the primary schools that saw the massive enrolment of the primary school pupils.

According to the state governor  in an interview, the  primary school enrolment  jumped from the 1.2 million to 2.1 million  by the middle of 2017.  The governor went further to state that even though the state was one of the states benefiting from the Federal Government feeding programme, “we used our money to feed the children with the hope that the Federal  Government will reinburse  us later.”

He said the  next challenge before his government was how to discongest the schools. “A situation where you have 200 pupils in a class is utterly unacceptable. We are determined to construct more classes. This time around, storey buildings to ease the discongestion,” el-Rufai stated.

Also speaking about the schools rehabilitation, a source at the State Universal Basic Board, who pleaded for anonymity remarked that the state government had embarked on the renovation of its primary schools across the 23 local government areas of the state. It was learnt that so far, about 400 primary schools had been renovated under the scheme.

Speaking also, the governor’s media aide, Samuel Aruwan, maintained that the state was determined to improve the primary education. According to him, apart from the rehabilitation of the schools, the government had equally resolved to improve on the quality of teachers. It was on this premise, Aruwan added, that a competency test was conducted for over 30,000 primary school teachers and out of the number, only 11,000 passed. He said those that failed would be disengaged and their entitlements paid to them in accordance to the civil service rules. He also said the recruitment of new teachers had begun in earnest,saying that only those qualified would be recruited.