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Tag: private schools

  • Study: Private schools save govt N377b

    Study: Private schools save govt N377b

    If results of some studies by the Developing Effective Private Education Nigeria (DEEPEN) are anything to go by, the Lagos State government may be considering tax incentives for private schools soon.

    This is because private schools have saved the government over N377 billion educating about 7.5 million pre-primary, primary and secondary pupils in the state in the last five years.

    The researches by DEEPEN, a programme sponsored by the Department for International Development (DFID), a United Kingdom (UK) donor agency, to improve learning outcomes, particularly in low-cost private schools that serve low income families, were concluded in February. They focused on how much private schools have saved the government by investing in education, learning outcomes in literacy and numeracy in private schools compared to public schools, and situational analysis of public examinations.

    At the dissemination of findings of the studies held at The Dover Hotel, Ikeja, DEEPEN researcher, Chioma Obi-Osuji, noted that the N377.010 billion savings between 2010/11 and 2014/15 was calculated based on the unit cost of N45,560 and N68,136 that government spends per pupil at the primary and secondary levels.  She also said low-cost private schools accounted for 52 per cent of the savings.

    Projecting the likely cost to educate about 19,075,045 pupils expected to be attending primary and secondary schools between now and 2024, DEEPEN announced that the government would save N958 billion within the period.  Calculated according to quality education scenario endorsed by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), the amount becomes even higher – N1,443 billion.

    DEEPEN Team Leader, Dr Gboyega Ilusanya, said the implication of the research is for the government to consider the vital role private education providers play in the education sector and give them an enabling environment to be effective.

    “That tells us a lot of story; it means that we have to be thinking differently about this public private sector collaboration.  It does not imply that government should be giving money to private sector, but we should be looking at what challenges they face in their business environment.  When you look at Lagos State development plan 2012-2025, it actually mentioned straight forward that Lagos State has recognised education as a pluralist in Lagos and the samething has begun for other businesses in Lagos State,” he said.

    Lagos State Commissioner for Economic Planning and Budget, Mr Akinyemi Ashade, described the findings as eye-opening.

    “It is something we need to take cognisance of.  The savings appeal to me.  For us in Planning, what we have to focus on is how we can get convergence in terms of quality so that we don’t have two systems where children get different qualities of education,” he said.

    However, he noted that private education providers must contribute their quota in terms of taxes.

    Responding on behalf of low-cost private school educators under the umbrella of the Association for Formidable Education Development, the president, Mrs Ifedola Dada, urged the government to exempt low cost schools from taxes.

    “In some other countries, low income schools are exempted from a lot of levies because of their participation and what they are doing to the grassroots. You can see it is very difficult to get land in Lagos, so government should look into that.  The government can establish education bank.  If a cloth seller can have access to bank loans, then what happens to education?  They need a lot of adjustment in that area,” she said.

    Regarding analysis of examinations, DEEPEN found out that policies of government that all public and private school pupils take the Primary Six placement test and the JSS3 Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) was not true in practice as not all private schools take the examinations.  Also, some private schools presented primary five instead of primary six pupils for the examination; and charged additional fees well above government charges.

    The study also showed that private educators want government to make public examinations compulsory and free at primary and junior secondary levels.

     

  • Private schools and extra fees

    Last week, the Developing Private Education Nigeria (DEEPEN), a programme sponsored by the Department for International Development (DFID) presented findings of several researches, including one into performance of pupils in public examinations at primary and junior secondary school levels in Lagos State. One of the findings was that private schools charge additional fees well above the charges collected by government to organise the examinations – transferring the burden to parents.

    There was a recommendation that the government should make registration for the examination free for private schools, particularly low-cost private schools since it is free for public pupils. I agree low-cost private schools should not be over-burdened but what I am not sure is about other categories of private schools.

    Apart from low-cost schools serving children of low-income earners, I think the government should charge other schools registration fees.  This is because schools would still charge for the examinations, anyway, even if the government declares it free.  I have heard of many cases of extortion by schools in the name of registering students for public examinations.  Some schools charge candidates as high as N25,000 and above for the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE).  Parents are made to pay the examination fees in addition to school fees and other charges.  What is more, the schools usually collect the fees upfront for students in terminal classes.  That is, parents are made to pay for the three terms at the beginning of the academic session; or pay for the second and third terms at the beginning of the second term.  Schools do this to safeguard their money and avoid the students graduating without paying fees.

    Defaulting on fees is a problem school owners have to deal with every term, I know.  However, it is no reason for schools to use whatever means possible to milk money out of parents.  This is not the culture in all private schools.  But an appreciable number of schools do not waste the slightest opportunity they get to milk money from parents who are already suffering under the burden of multiple fees.  Even after charging a lot for the examination, some private schools then charge again when students come for their results.  Though students may have cleared all fees payable before graduating, when they return to the school to collect their statements of result, certificate or testimonials, they are to made to pay additional exorbitant charges – sometimes up to N10,000 before they are given the documents.  Because schools know that these documents are necessary for admission, they know they can hold the candidates to ransom.  When asked why they collect such fees, they give spurious reasons.  There is a case we are currently trying to unravel where a school owner demanded N3,000 from parents before releasing the results of the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) to the candidates.  He claimed that the fee would be used to transfer the result from the spreadsheet format prepared by the Lagos State Examination Board (LSEB) to statement format.  All parents that refused to pay have been unable to access the results of their wards and are now powerless against the school.

    Schools especially are able to wield their power and deny candidates of their results at the BECE level because, unlike the WASSCE, the result is only released to schools and not accessible to candidates online.  Representatives of DEEPEN suggested that the LSEB toe the line of the national examining bodies like the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) and the National Examinations Council (NECO) which release results online thereby breaking the monopoly of schools.  Beyond that however, I also think parents should be able to complain about extortion by private schools and get redress.

  • ‘Govt unfair to private schools’

    Chairman of Ogun State NAPPS Dr Abayomi Jiboku, said the government is not fair to the body. According to him,the association is already used to government’s policy somersault. In this interview with ADEGUNLE OLUGBAMILA, he speaks on the delayed exam and other issues

    How did NAPPS receive  the news of the Basic Certificate Education Examination?

    We are used to what is happening now because even assuming the exam was written on time, the results would not come out at the time that you would like to make use of them for promotion. So, we have just been writing the exam for the sake of writing it. It did not really matter if we did not write, because we have our own NAPPS exam which of course, is more of quality in standard and we rely more on it to effect our promotions.

    “Now, we would be resuming in September and the results would not come out until maybe October or early November. Would the results not be belated by then? As far as NAPPS is concerned, we have never been using the results of that examination in promoting our students. It is just that we have to write it since we are approved by the Federal Government.

    Is the Ministry of Education being fair on private schools in the state?

    Of course not! Let me use my school as an example. We have written our exams; we have got  the students ready to go home with their parents. All of a sudden, the government said they wanted to start writing their exam from Tuesday, July21, when the school authority and PTA have decided that today (Saturday, July 18) we would be vacating and parents would come back between July 27 and 30 to collect their report sheets.

    We have parents all over Nigeria; those that come all the way from Kwara, Plateau, Abuja,  who want to collect their children. Will I now say no, they cannot? because the ministry has just given a directive? So, I have told the ministry officials that they should go back and give it a consideration, because I cannot stop my parents from picking their children today.

    And what does this say about government’s approach to private schools?

    “Of course they (government) are being unfair to private pupils and the truth is that public schools manned by the state government are treated as public entities.

    “We are private schools. We cannot afford to be lackadaisical or loose in our approach to treating matters that relate to the education of these children, because these parents have brought their children to private schools, knowing full well that there is nothing to write about public education. So, we cannot afford to disappoint them.

    “We need to give them the value for their money and all the seriousness they deserve. So, we cannot do things the way the government does it, because they believe they are running public institutions.

  • Public, private schools battle for TETFund cash

    Public, private schools battle for TETFund cash

    The role of individuals and religious societies in education cannot be discountenanced. For long, they have been supporting the government in this critical sector. They started with the founding of nursery/primary schools; moved into secondary school and are now into tertiary education.

    Private schools have their challenges, despite some of the good things people say about them. Their major challenge is funding, an area where they cannot match the government. The different tiers of government own most of the schools inthe country. The Federal Government is at the top of the ownership ladder.

    Last year, it devoted 8.43 per cent of the budget to the funding of education. Many consider the vote may be inadequate because it is for the funding of public-owned schools and relevant regulatory agencies and parastatals of the Federal Ministry of Education, (FME)

    Private schools do not enjoy government support. It is argued that since they charge fees and make profit, they do not need financial support to build infrastructure, hire teachers and provide equipment like their public school counterparts.

    Now, they are beginning to agitate for a change. They are seeking greater recognition and financial support from the government. They are also seeking relief from paying high taxes.

    They made their stand known at the 28th Annual Conference of the Association of Vice Chancellors of Nigerian Universities (AVCNU) hosted by the Federal University of Technology in Akure (FUTA). At the opening of the conference, some vice-chancellors of private universities protested claims by government representatives that private schools do not need support because they charge fees.

    At the end of the conference attended by 60 vice-chancellors from public and private universities, the communiqué reflected the feelings of private school administrators that they deserve government’s support.

    Part of the observations in the communiqué read: “Universities do not operate under the same circumstances having been established by various entities but inadequacy of funding by university proprietors is a major cause of declining educational quality in all universities.”

    To this end, the AVCNU recommended that the: “Federal Government should increase funding of public universities and extend financial support to private ones.”

    Prof Olusola Fajana, Vice-Chancellor of the Joseph Ayo Babalola University [JABU], attended the conference and was one of those who protested the claim that private schools are very comfortable.

    Fajana told The Nation that private universities should benefit from the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) because it is funded by the private sector. TETFund derives its money from two per cent of the profit of private companies. The fund, the brainchild of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), is disbursed as grants to federal and state universities as grants to improve infrastructure, train lecturers and conduct research among others.

    Fajana said it is erroneous to think that private universities exist to make profit because many of them charge well below the cost of education.

    “A large number of private universities are not for profit. You cannot be charging 50 per cent of the cost and want to make profit. The cost of training an undergraduate as calculated two years ago was between N800,000 and N900,000. Our school fees is not N800,000 but half of that and the proprietors subsidise the money. Those universities charging N800,000 are charging close to the cost,” he said.

    Fajana advocated for the return of grants-in-aid that was given to mission schools in pre-independence Nigeria to help cover the cost of education.

    Even if the government is unwilling to develop infrastructure in private universities, Fajana is advocating support in training lecturers.

    “The government should at least assist in funding our capacity development for staff,” he said.

    Also making a case for government funding for private university, Aare Afe Babalola, founder of the Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti [ABUAD], said his university reinvests proceeds into enhancing education and should be supported by governemt.

    He said: “I strongly believe government should fund my university because ABUAD is the only university in Nigeria today that was established as a non-profit making university. This simply means neither I nor my wife or children is entitled to a penny of the profit. Every profit that is made from the university goes back into the university.

    “There are people that are wealthy in this country yet many fail to leave a lasting legacy. Some even decided to establish companies outside the country in the face of acute joblessness and poverty at the home front. But as God has blessed me so much through this legal practice, I one day now asked myself what can I do to reward humanity for what God has done for me, it was then the idea of ABUAD came on board. And I think people like us should be given kudos for bequeathing to humanity a lifelong asset.”

    Rather than considering profit when thinking of private schools, Mr Mandy David Abulaya, proprietor of Nacabs Polytechnic in Akwanga, Nasarawa State, said government should appreciate the social service they provide.

    “Private schools need a lot of funds. Education is not profit-oriented. You can only make goodwill and name but you don’t make profit,” he said.

    At almost all levels of education, private schools are proliferating in Nigeria. At the university education sub-sector, there are 51 private universities, compared to the 40 run by the Federal Government and the 38 run by state governments. At the primary and secondary levels, there are close to 20,000 private schools in Nigeria – with more than 12,000 of them located in Lagos alone.

    However, despite their increasing numbers, President of the National Association of Proprietors of Private Schools, Dr P.C. Okoh lamented the lack of support or recognition from the government.

    Okoh said at a Private Education Finance Summit held at the Excellence Hotel and Conference Centre, Ogba penultimate week that the private education sub-sector now caters for more children than the public education sub-sector.

    “With the virtual collapse of public education system in many parts of the country, private schools rose to the challenge of bridging the gap. Parents prefer to send their children to private educational institutions to the extent that the private education subsector is today bigger than the public education sub-sector. Available records confirm that 98 per cent of secondary schools and 56 per cent of pre-schools, and 80 per cent of nursery pupils, 72 per cent of primary and 56 per cent of secondary school children are in private schools nationwide,” Okoh said in his speech read by the Chairman of Exam Ethics Marshals International, Mr Ike Onyechere.

    Okoh however lamented that despite their significant contribution to educational development in Nigeria, governments have not extended support to private proprietors like it did to other sectors.

    He said: “Despite its growing importance, government’s reaction to the private education sector is that of total neglect as all intervention efforts are focused on public education. There is no special intervention for private education as is the case in other sectors: Agriculture (Bank of Agriculture); Housing (Federal Mortgage Bank); Industries (Bank of Industry); Road transport (SURE-P) ETC.”

    On the contrary, rather than support Okoh said government tax private schools unfairly.

    “The private education sub-sector does not enjoy any fiscal policy incentives. To make matters worse, governments at all levels regard private schools as veritable sources for enhancement of internally-generated revenue. Private schools are further encumbered with all forms of taxation that include company tax, education tax, tax on signboards and stickers on school buses, etc.”

    Okoh also said lack of funding forces private schools to seek loans from commercial banks which charge them cut-throat interest rates that force some to increase fees and engage in unethical practices.

    “Of all the consequences of the financial pressure on private schools, weak adherence to best practices is the most dangerous. It is the driving force behind the weakening moral infrastructure as symbolised in the epidemic of examination malpractice and academic dishonesty,” he said.

    Attesting to Okoh’s claims, Mukhtar Yunus Uthman, the sole administrator of Ibrahim Bello Memorial School, Zaria, Kaduna State told The Nation that it is time governments at all levels recognised the social role private schools play in the society.

    He said annually, his school pays for renewal, signboard, tenement rate, personal annual income tax of proprietor and PAYE to the government. All this, he said, are taken without consideration for whether the schools can pay their workers.

    “The truth is we don’t even have the money. In some private schools, when the end of term comes, proprietors have problems paying their workers until students resume, not to talk of paying these taxes. Recently, the Kano State government started charging private schools 10 per cent of their total annual income deductable before they remove tax salaries or any other expenses. Now in Kaduna State, we are battling with the plan of government to charge five per cent annual income as tax,” he said.

    Complaining about multiple taxes from various agents of government, Mrs Temilola Afolabi, proprietress of High Gate Schools, Oshodi said the government regulation forces school owners to take loans.

    She said: ”The tax imposed on us is much. The government sees private schools as if we collect a lot of money. We pay N63,000 for land use which is quite much but what can we do? We cannot fight the government; we just have to continue to manage. Sometimes we have to collect loans to pay these taxes. The personal income tax is another problem. How much is even the salary that they pay tax from when teachers are being paid maybe N15,000, N18,000 or N20,000?

    “The radio and television tax is N10,000, then it was just N500. If you don’t pay up, the local council will come and threaten to close up your school. In fact we were even asked to pay N20,000 before we beat it down to N10,000. We just have two televisions; one for the day class and the other for the prep class. It is not as if we usually have light. We are always on generator and yet we pay for PCHN. We pay N20,000 monthly for light which we do not even see. By the time you put all these expenditures – tax, teachers’ salary, maintenance fee, LAWMA, PHCN and other expenses, how much do you now have as your profit for the year?

    Mrs Oluokun Zainab, proprietress of Ansar-ud-deen Nursery and Primary School, Mafoluku, said the Lagos State Government should reduce the taxes.

    She said: “Every January we pay some amount of money to the government which they call revenue and it is mandatory. We pay N20,000 to the Lagos State Signage Advertiment Agency, (LASAA) every year; LAWMA (Lagos State Waste Management Authority), Ministry of Environment will come; and N5,000 for fire certificate which is renewed every year. Land uUe, PHCN,TV and radio tax, teachers income taxes are there. All these taxes are just too much on us. Government should help us to reduce the tax because they are trying to push us out of business. They cannot provide for all so they should support us. When they collect all these amount of money from us definitely the profit has been drastically reduced.”

    Mr Ayodele Ayodeji, Principal of SMA College, Isolo, said the taxes are ridiculous.

    “Local government officials will come and harass you. Even the government officials will come to us and ask for withholding tax. If you want to paint your building yourself, they will come and say you must contract it out to them and you must pay tax. People are now moving away from education sector in Lagos to nearby places like Ogun State because of these reasons. The Directors tax that the owners also are made to pay is much. This will not help the country or people at all,” he said.

    However, Lagos State Commissioner for Education, Mrs Olayinka Oladunjoye said at a forum with private school proprietors, that the government considers them as partners.

    She said: “We have since realised that there is no way that government alone can move the education sector forward, we need to partners with the private sector and other stakeholders in the education sector because we realised that the largest number of our children are in private schools.”

    She urged them to get the list of approved taxes from the ministry of education and desist from paying taxes to just any government official that shows up on their doorsteps.

  • Kano shuts down 69 private schools

    The Kano State Government’s Task Force on Private Schools has shut down 19 schools indefinitely.

    Fifty others were suspended for allegedly refusing to comply with the regulations guiding the operations of private schools in the state.

    The Chairman of the Task Force on Private Schools, Alhaji Baba Umar spoke yesterday in Kano on the government’s action.

    He said despite operating in an unsuitable environment, like garages and makeshift structures, some of the schools’ proprietors still increased fees.

    He also said despite collecting verification forms since June, last year. Majority of the proprietors did not return the forms to the task force, thereby making it difficult to ascertain the number of private schools in the state.

    Umar noted that the refusal of some proprietors to follow due process forced the task force to close down indefinitely 19 of the defaulting schools, while 50 others were suspended, pending their compliance with the rules and regulations on private schools in the state,

    According to him, the task force, which was inaugurated last year by Governor Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, is not out to witch-hunt anybody but to ensure sanity in the system.

  • Start succession planning now, proprietors told

    Proprietors of Private schools have been told to establish a succession plan if they want their schools to remain in existence for many generations.

    This was the focus of discussion at a conference organised by the Association of International School Educators of Nigeria (AISEN), held at the Oriental Hotel, Lekki last week.

    Professionals in education management, entrepreneurship and leadership development programmes were there to do justice to the theme, Succession Planning: 30 years on.

    Speaking on: Tools for Staying the Course keynote speaker, Mr Jeff Bradley, said it is not common for school owners to plan ahead of their departure, noting that it is quite important to do so.

    Bradley, who has been a teacher, coach, dean and head of school for 17 years in the United States, said for a succession plan to sail through, good governance and leadership are very important factors that encapsulate sound direction, continuity, consistency and effective support from staff members.

    Bradley said to pick a successor, one should look for leadership quality ” someone who is showing imagination and great leadership, creativity, and passion; who knows how to connect, who is good at building alliances, who do people listen to,” he said.

    He added: “Look for people who are lifters not learners. The lifters are the ones who shoulder their burden and carry others; they are the ones who can move the school forward. Look for people with a growth mindset not a fixed mindset. The people with growth mindset are constantly learning and working. They don’t mind if they fail, they keep on pushing themselves, they look for challenges, feedback, and want to hear criticism. They constantly look for ways to better themselves.

    “When you find the person, give them space to fail and learn from their mistakes. Allow them explore. Make them start from the beginning, and trust the person very much,” he said.

    Underscoring the importance of a succession plan, the second speaker, Mrs Ndidi Nwuneli, founder of LEAP Africa, said many companies have died because there was nobody to carry on.

    Speaking on: Identifying and grooming your successor, she said people are scared of sitting down to think that one day they would become old and weak or even die , so therefore need someone to take over from where they stop.

    “There were companies that used to be the talk of town before but are nowhere today. Some died because of succession problem. You need to have a clear succession plan. You don’t need to procrastinate. When you are putting your board together, put in people that will help you prepare your school to survive from generation to generation. Don’t just put in your family members”, she warned.

    AISEN President, Mrs Ekua Abudu, said it is inevitable that one day, the proprietors will leave their businesses. “Our intention is that every school present here will provide their services to generations yet unborn.”

     

  • Principal faults non-involvement of private schools in sports

    Principal, Early-Life Secondary School, Festac, Mr Onyema Onyenakeya has complained that private schools are not notified of school sports activities organised by government, unlike in the past.

    Speaking at the 17th inter-house sports competition of the school, Onyenakeya said a return to the old practice would help Nigeria to groom future athletes that can compete on the international level.

    He said: “They are not catching them young these days. In those days when we were in school, we had school sporting activities, local, state and national level; and from there you have a group of people that are well groomed but that is lacking today. It is unfortunate that even when attempts are made to recognise it, the private schools are not carried along. We have private schools that sport should reckon with, but when you exclude them you are not reaping the reward of what this sector of education is growing.

    “For Nigeria to actually make it in sports at national and international levels we need to go back to the grass root; we need to go back to the school level. We need to encourage schools; sports teachers need to be trained and also need motivated. As a matter of fact, it should be a law that before approval of any school adequate sporting facilities should be provided, and there should be adequate and periodical competition among schools at the primary and secondary levels.”

    During the sports competition, the pupils participated in 100, 200 and 400 metres dash, relay race, Cycling, Orobo race, and Calisthenics. The event also featured races by teachers and parents.

    The competition came to an end with Blue House lifting the trophy. Yellow House came second, Green third, and Red, fourth position. The best male and female athletes of the competition were Nnamdi Okeke and Ugwu Chinyere.

    Chairman of the event, Sir Peter Nwabunike Ezimuor said “sports plays central role in the psycho-motor development of students. Moreover, these days sports not only enhances the physical development of people, it also enhances their mental development and is a veritable means of employment and stardom to many.”

     

  • Wamakko wields big stick against private schools

    Wamakko wields big stick against private schools

    •2,000 supervisors, teachers redeployed

    Sokoto State Governor, Aliyu Wamakko has said private schools shut recently will not be reopened until they comply with government’s education standards as well as the religious and cultural dictates of the Sokoto people.

    In a statement signed by the governor’s Special Assistant on Press Affairs, Abubakar Dangusau, Wamakko was quoted as saying, “All the private schools recently closed down by the ministry of education for operating below standards will remain closed. They will remain closed until when they are willing to operate duly and in line with the religion and cultures of the people of the state.

    “These private schools must also make strenuous efforts to provide the needed conducive atmosphere for effective teaching and learning to take place.”

    Wamakko, who paid unscheduled visits to some primary and secondary schools in Sokoto North, Sokoto South and Dange/Shuni Local Government Areas, also instructed that 2,000 Education Officers (supervisors) at the Sokoto State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) and teachers be redeployed to ensure equity in their distribution, improve effective routine inspection as well as monitoring and evaluation in schools.

    “We also want the teachers to be more dedicated to their duties to reciprocate the gesture of the state government in committing huge amount of money in the education sector,” he said.

     

  • A case for private schools

    Private schools may be charging moderately or exorbitantly for the services they offer but it does not take away from the fact that they are partnering with government to provide an important social function. This is because the government cannot educate all its citizenry alone, yet those educated by the private sector are expected to contribute their quota to societal development with the skills they gained in school.

    For this reason, government must be interested in what goes on in private schools. Sadly, beyond registering the schools and charging them annual levies, many state governments do not do enough to monitor or assist them. The monitoring we hear of usually does not go beyond the news of government closing down substandard private schools operating in inappropriate environments. School owners, especially those running primary and secondary schools, regard this lack of monitoring as neglect. They are also complaining about multiple taxations and high levies they must pay regularly.

    The Federal Ministry of Education (FME) is supposed to provide the policy framework that guides how our education system is run. It plays this role through its regulatory agencies and parastatals. However, news about policy changes and implementation do not circulate to private secondary schools well enough. While government ensures that public schools are aware of changes and provides platforms for training for its teachers, private schools are left to their fate. The best the government does most times is to reach out to the various groups that some private school owners belong to. Unfortunately, not all of them affiliate with associations, so they miss out on changes.

    In terms of curriculum changes particularly, I think government needs to do a lot more to carry private schools along. When a curriculum changes, many times, there are new additions that teachers may be unfamiliar with. They may also be required to gain new pedagogy to implement the curriculum effectively. But once the private schools are informed of the change, how they implement it seems to be nobody’s business and this is not the best. We may believe that public school candidates account for the larger percentage of failure in public examinations. However, private schools also record a large percentage of failure. In the May/June 2012 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) result, the national average in terms of number of credits in English and Mathematics and at least three other subjects was 38.81 per cent – and it was not achieved by private school candidates alone. Many pupils from private schools are failing to meet the required literacy and numeracy learning outcomes. Their teachers, sourced from the general pool of tutors who for years received poor education themselves, cannot give what they do not have. Some do not have the minimum qualifications to teach; while others that have degrees may lack the professional training in pedagogy teachers get from colleges of education and faculties of education in universities. In private schools that serve the poor and those overly concerned about profit and not service delivery, funds are not released for post-qualification capacity development of teachers. Poor pay and welfare package, as well as lack of corporate governance structure in many of the schools, also result in high staff turnover which has its own negative effect on learning and school culture.

    Inspectorate divisions of all state ministries of education should be up and doing in monitoring what is happening in our private schools. Their visits to schools should not be to witch hunt but encourage them to do the right thing. Rather than instill fear of closure, and seek bribes to cover up errors, inspectors should point out where schools are going wrong and guide them to the right path. Private schools should anticipate the visits of inspectors, not with fear, but with expectation that they will benefit from their wisdom and experience.

    Another area government needs to look into is funding. Because of the belief that private schools are established to make profit (though many proprietors claim they established their schools to correct the anomalies in the pubic education system), government does not extend grants to them. However, if the government cannot provide grants to these schools because of the burden of funding public education, it can at least evolve policies that would help them get soft loans that do not attract such high interest rates that banks demand of other businesses. For years, school owners have been calling on the government to establish an education bank or trust fund from which they can draw capital to bring their schools up to the desired standard. This is not too much for government to do.

    As partners in the business of producing skilled labour – the most important resource of any nation – government needs to draw the private education sector closer. School owners and administrators need to be involved in issues regarding curriculum, training, and delivery so that we can produce better Nigerians who will be effective in facilitating national development.