Continued from last week
THE number must have increased considerably since then. Assuming, very conservatively, that there are only 8,000 expatriates of these categories employed in Nigeria today at an average salary of £1,720 each, and assuming that each of them repatriates half of his salary, which is the amount permissible under the present emergency, they will all cost us about £7 million yearly in foreign exchange, which would be saved if their places were taken by Nigerians. By the same token, we would save as much as £8 million in local currency, every year. It is apposite to mention, in passing, that according to the same manpower Board’s Study No.2, Tables 6-11 there were 7,379 vacancies in the high-level categories in 1964. More than likely, this number has increased sizeably since then.
The importance of free education as an aid to full employment must also be stressed. Under the scheme as proposed, it would be possible for government to orientate its education policy to its economic and social needs, and so make the absorption of our youth into employment much easier than would otherwise have been the case.
The conclusion, which we are bound to draw from the foregoing arguments is that, in Nigeria’s scheme of things, free education at all levels must be accorded top priority; which is precisely what we strongly advocate.
We now come to the most contentious part of this debate: financial feasibility. I recognise that this is a very important issue, and that it calls for a more detailed treatment than is usual in a book which deals only with objectives and guidelines. But, because of the widespread scepticism and doubt which have been engendered by the signal failure of the free primary education scheme in the former Eastern Region, its recent abandonment in the Mid-West State, and the undeserved and, sometimes, spiteful attacks on its success in the Western State, it is essential that certain crucial points, relating to free education at all levels, should be established beyond any cavil. The structure, system, and pattern of the proposed free education scheme; the estimation of its costs, which must be done with a fair degree of accuracy; the manner in which these costs have been estimated so as thereby to allay any reasonable doubt and suspicion as to their arithmetical justification; and the relation which such estimated costs bear, over a period of years, to our present and prospective financial resources;-all these are necessary, in order to demonstrate that when we invite our people to take the momentous step forward into free education at all levels, we are not luring them into an avenue of unrealizable hopes and painful regrets, but rather inspiring them to pursue a course which is difficult but fairly well-charted, and which leads, undoubtedly and progressively, to a happy haven. It is for all these reasons that the somewhat technical points contained in the Appendices have been accorded a place in this book. lt will be seen that the Appendices, together with their accompanying Tables, speak for themselves. But there are some salient points in Appendix I to which I would like to call attention for purposes of emphasis.
As at present, there are going to be three levels of the proposed educational system-primary or first level; secondary or second level; and higher or third level.
The first level would be a six-year course. It would be compulsory and tuition-free. It must be compulsory if our aim of eventual general enlightenment for all our people is to be achieved. The temptation is too great for many parents to want to withdraw their children from school after a year or two. In these cases, the children soon lose the little they have learned, and either lapse into illiteracy and fatalism, or become frustra ted and disgruntled.
It is proposed that the free and compulsory primary education scheme should be launched in January 1974. The reason is that we cannot afford to wait till later, and it is not practicable to start the scheme earlier. As we have previously pointed out, the harmonious unity of Nigeria demands that immediate steps should be taken to close the gap in education as between the northern and southern parts of the country. Indeed, I wish it were practicable to start the registration of primary school pupils throughout the country immediately. But this cannot take place until 1973. A good deal of preparation is required before the actual launching of the scheme. New classrooms will have to be built; and their appropriate locations in different parts of the country will have to be determined. The requisite number of teachers will have to be trained ready for the opening of the new schools; and colleges for teacher-training will also have to be built at carefully chosen locations. It is important, having regard to the experience acquired from the operation of free primary education in the Western State, that only teachers not below Grade II should be allowed to teach, in future, in all our primary schools.
A period of about three years is also required for planning for and actually regrouping the villages in the northern parts of the Federation into Communes. (For the meaning of Commune, see Chapter VI). As things are now, it would be difficult, in the rural areas of the north, to site schools in locations which will be easily and almost equally accessible to all the children. Unless the villages are regrouped, many children would have to travel some seven or more miles to get to schools.
Above all, we require about a year or a year-and-half, from the middle of 1970, within which the produce a comprehensive national development plan with which our education programme would be mtregated.
Assuming then that we are able to make up our minds, by about the middle of 1970, to embark on a free and compulsory primary education scheme, we shall need the rest of the year to assemble teams of public officers and experts to do all the preparatory work to which we have made reference. And from the beginning of 1972 to the end of 1973, the country would witness a tempo of development activities such as were never known before, and which would fire the imagination and raise the morale of the masses of our peole, and make them work as one vast indivisible team for one tremendous and historic common objective.
To be continued
and then