Why we supported Lagos govt’s shutdown of 45 schools —NAPPS, parents, others

The National Association of Private School Proprietors, NAPPS; the League of Muslim School Proprietors, LEAMSP, and the Association for Formidable Educational Development, AFED, have all expressed their support for the Lagos State government’s decision to close down 45 private schools considered to be substandard across the state last week.

The National Parent-Teacher Association of Nigeria, NPTAN, has also led its support to the government for taking the action.

The leadership of all the four registered associations stated this in a separate conversations with Tribune Education on Tuesday, describing the shutting down of the affected schools as a welcome development.

While NAPPS has more than half of all private schools as members, LEAMSP consists of only schools owned by the Muslims, and AFED is an association of low-cost schools.

The Lagos State government announced the immediate shutting down of 45 substandard schools following the collapse of Ohen Primary and Nursery School building at Ita-Faaji in Lagos Island last week killing 20 students and injuring over 40 others who are still recuperating in various hospitals in the state.  

Messrs Wasiu Adunmadehin (NAPPS, Lagos president), Fatai Raheem (LEAMSP, Lagos chairman), Mrs Esther Dada (AFED national president), and Chief Deolu Ogunbanjo (2nd deputy national president, NPTAN) said they all strongly believe that government took the decision in the interest of the public.

While the first three claimed that though Ohen Primary and Nursery School was not their member, they all described the incident as a great tragedy and loss to education family.

“We feel concerned mostly because it is a private school, and involved loss of lives,” NAPPS boss said.

“And we all need to guard against recurrence of such incident not only in Lagos State but also elsewhere in the country,” LEASMP boss added.

They said it is necessary that every school belongs to an association so as to be able to follow certain standards as laid down by the government.

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To register as members, they all pointed out that it is a must for willing schools to pass through thorough screening concerning standards and also indicate readiness to follow government’s rules and regulations that guide their operations before registering them.

“Even ours that are low cost schools, we emphasise on standard and quality for all our members at our meetings,” AFED boss added.

On the 45 schools that were closed down, both NAPPS and LEAMSP admitted that two to three of their members each are affected, while AFED despite being low-cost schools, had none, according to its president.

While all of them symphatise with the affected students whose education may have been disrupted by the development, they said they would not mind giving temporary relief to students in those schools pending when their owners will meet government’s specifications.

Chief Ogunbanjo, on his part, urged parents to always ascertain the standard of schools not only in terms of whether they are government-approved or not but also about the building structures and quality training to offer before enrolling their children there.