Nigeria’s troubled education sector and the partnership between Oyo govt, GCI old boys

A lot of Nigerians – and possibly for good reasons – expect government to be able to provide free, qualitative education to its youth. The reasons for this are partly historical – majority of the parents of today enjoyed some form of free education themselves and saw no reason why this practice cannot be sustained. Politicians also saw promises of free education as vote winners and they embraced this even though the dynamics of funding depend on the revenue they get from the sale of oil – itself a volatile commodity whose price depends a lot on external forces.

So, the promises made by politicians during campaigns that they will give education the deserved priority in the country’s polity has often ended as pipe dreams. Indeed, were wishes to be horses, even beggars would ride on them. When faced with the reality of inadequate funding and several other contending issues, successive governments have simply abandoned their sweet promises – sometimes followed with other cheeky vows to fulfill their promises at a latter day sometime in the future.

It is perhaps no surprise then that Nigeria has never been able to meet its desire of adequate funding for the education sector. The country on average earmarks between five and seven per cent of its budget to education, a far cry from the amount needed to actually develop the sector.

The effects of this are easy to see in the overcrowded and hard to manage classrooms in a majority of Nigerian public schools – from primary, secondary to tertiary ones.

The university system, for instance, has virtually collapsed as varsity lecturers regularly spend more time on strikes than in the classrooms. The strike itself is a symptom of the inability  of the Federal Government to fund the university system and improve the welfare of lecturers.

A study by the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF), for instance, showed that Nigerian lecturers have gone on strike close to 20 times since 1999.  This means that for every five years since 1999, Nigerian universities have been closed for one year due to strike.

This year, in a statement to commemorate the International Day of Education, Unicef also revealed that 10.5 million Nigerian children are out of school, which the agency said was the highest rate in the world.

The UNICEF Representative in Nigeria, Peter Hawkins, said this tragic situation is mostly due to poor funding for the sector,

“Far too many Nigerian children today are not in the classroom – and for those who are, far too many are not getting a solid education that can translate into good prospects for their futures,” he said.

A former chairman of ASUU at the University of Port Harcourt branch, Dr Austen Sado, also recently said Nigerians themselves must share the blame in what has befallen the educational system, even as they confront the reality that government had completely abdicated its responsibility of funding education.

“Everybody is guilty. Until everybody sees education as his or her own responsibility, to revamp education in this country will be a very tough task,” Sado said.

“We must bring education up to par with what is happening in the First World so that our children can begin to have a feel of what it means in an information technology-driven era.”

To be clear, education has not always been the sole preserve of government. From the very beginning, there had always been other providers of educational services –religious institutions, businesses, communities, social groups and individuals. But these are only able to take care of a small, albeit growing, percentage of students. Thus, the Nigerian government remains the largest player in the education sector and owns close to 90 per cent of all education institutions across the nation.

Necessity, as they say, is however the mother of invention and every cloud comes with its own silver lining. A lot of people have now come to the realization that the very crucial education sector cannot be left to government alone and several creative ways have evolved to address the deficit. Thus corporate organisations, old students – either singly or in groups- as well as Parents Teachers Associations have quietly moved in to pick some of the slack as much as they could through the provision of equipment, renovation of structures, scholarships or supply of books.

Recently, another model was unveiled in Oyo State with an agreement between the state government and the Incorporated Trustees of the Government College Ibadan Old Boys Association (GCIOBA) for the management, operation and development of the school.

Government College Ibadan is a respectable boys’ only institution of learning established on February 28, 1929. As such, the school has generations of committed and well-resourced old boys able to restore its glory and prepare it for the future. In its heyday, the school attracted only the best students, which it prepared for a life of service to the nation. In fact, a majority of its students at the time were beneficiaries of the free education policies of the western government.

Significantly, the agreement between the Oyo State government and GCIOBA stipulates that the school will remain tuition-free even as it provides higher quality teaching to its students through better motivation and training of the teaching staff by the new GCIOBA management.

Secretary to the State Government (SSG) Olubamiwo Adeosun had revealed that a study conducted by the government upon assumption of office in 2019 indicated that it needed over N40 billion to take the education sector in the state to standard. According to her, it was clear from the beginning that the state could not do it alone.

Ms Adeosun said the state government’s hope was that the GCI, under the management of the old boys association, is quickly returned to a high standard that others could follow. Luckily, this matches the pledge made by Dr Wale Babalakin, president of the Incorporated Trustees of the GCIOBA, who led the team to the signing table.

Dr Babalakin revealed that the old boys association had already spent over a billion naira to upgrade facilities at the school and promised that since most members of the board are at the ‘giving back’ phase of their lives, it was only fitting that they chose their alma mater as a major beneficiary.

The takeover of the school by the former students would not only restore the glory of the institution and raise a new generation of scholars educated to global standards that would carry its glory into the future. What is there not to like?

Tijjani wrote from Ibadan.

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