Many parents prefer private to public schools because they believe things are better there. Their children will be well taught and they will get value for their money, they claim. But how really good are private schools? Do they meet parents’ expectations? KOFOWOROLA BELO-OSAGIE, ADEGUNLE OLUGBAMILA and MEDINAT KANABE report.
It is an endless debate among parents and other stakeholders in the education sector. Which is better, private or public schools? To some, private schools are better; but others feel otherwise. The latter believes that public schools have all it takes to give a child quality education. Because of this belief, many parents are not ready to touch private schools, even with a 10-foot pole.
Advocates of private schools believe that there is a rot in the public school system which has affected the quality of education. They argue that government’s failure in other sectors is reflected in public schools. But do private schools really have what it takes to fill the gap? The answer, to some parent, is no. Why? They say the schools are not run ethically.” They cut corners and circumvent the rules in order to make money and retain pupils,” some said.
“What many of the schools do that is annoying is that they award marks to pupils who fail and that is unethical,” says a parent, who pleaded not to be named. The schools too blame parents for not paying attention to their children because they have sent them to school. According to some teachers, that should not be the case. “Parents,” they say, “should complement what we do as teachers.” What is the way out? Should there be a summit on education where parents and teachers should meet to rub minds? “Yes,” say some teachers. “It is high time we met with parents to iron out these grey areas in the interest of these pupils and their future,”a teacher said.
A guidance counsellor, Dr Ibilola Amao, believes parents with children in private schools must do more in terms of giving them quality education. From organising one-week residential science camp retreats for secondary school pupils over the years as part of her Vision 20: 2020 Career Counselling, Industry Awareness and Youth Empowerment Initiative, Mrs Amao said the improved performance of public schools in the retreat shows that parents with children in private schools are neglecting their duties.
In an interview with The Nation, Mrs Amao said during last year’s edition of the summer camp at the Dowen College, Lekki, Lagos public schools’ pupils performed better than their private schools’ counterparts in every department. They were also better behaved, she added.
She urged parents who are paying so much in private schools to check the privileges their children are getting that distracts them from focusing on their education.
She said: “I have enlightened them and educated them that other people’s children who go to public schools are doing better. They wake up at 4.30 in the morning, they do some home chores and some serious work before they go to school. They don’t wake up grudgingly at 6.30 and expect to get to school. State secondary school science students out-performed those from the private secondary schools and that is the fact. And they were even the best behaved children as well during our camp. So, I cannot imagine what the so-called leaders, captains of industry and what we call ourselves can boast of. Parents need to take away the video games, blackberry, i.pads and all the things that do not make the children to focus on their books.”
Some other parents and teachers agree with her. They insist that it is foolhardy to expect the schools only to educate and instil discipline in pupils. “What are the parents doing that they cannot monitor the education of their children?” they wondered.
A mother of three and a teacher Mrs Erica Chikwendu said parents should ask questions about expected learning outcomes to enable them know whether their children are learning.
“As a teacher, I must say that parents have a lot to do. You should insist that your child’s school gives you expected learning outcomes and you should be able to know what your child should achieve after a certain class. Usually, schools have a term plan. It is divided into weeks. You should insist on knowing each topic from each subject and you follow up. Bringing up a child is not just a school’s duty but many parents are leaving it to the school and that is why they do not know what their children are doing in school.
“But, if you are involved, you will know when they are not doing well; when their mates are doing better than them. And you can enforce it because some teachers tend to be lazy. Not all children have the same intelligent quotient (IQ) to grab fast so you have to do your own job as a parent to make sure that the school does its own.
“I go back to the school and tell them my son came back and could not do his home work because he does not know what a verb is. That is like checking the school so for me they are on their toes with me. I don’t know about other mothers,” she said.
A businesswoman, Mrs Bosede Alabi, also says she is a frequent visitor at her children’s school to ensure they are learning properly.
“I am a business woman. I go to my children’s school three to four times a week because it is still the same way I take to my shop. I go there and ask questions because, with most schools now, if you trust the proprietors or owner of the school, what about the teachers?” she said.
But not all parents are that committed, says Mr Sunday Ayo (not real name) a teacher, in a private school in Ojo, Lagos suburb. He said with this kind of attitude, parents are not able to check on whether the schools are doing well and what the pupils are failing to do.
Ayo does not deny the directive given by the management to “conjure marks” for pupils in his school, particularly those who underperformed during terminal examination, to give the impression that the pupils did not fare too badly.
He said: “They (parents) don’t have private audience with their children. Some parents, once they fix their children in a private school, simply go to bed believing the often good results their children bring home at the end of the term are testimonies of the high amount they pay as school fees on them.”
His colleague who does not want to be named, complained that many pupils do what they like when they know their parents don’t check.
He said: “I have on countless times, caught some pupils in my class playing with handsets or reading sports magazines. Come to our Staff room and you will see the number of handsets we have seized. We sent for some of the parents but they hardly come around. There was a particular student that we have seized over three handsets from, yet he keeps buying another . We have caught some of them smoking or sneaking alomo (a strong liquor) to school and send them home but their parents will come back begging, and that ends it.”
According to Mr Bob James, it was when he began to monitor his children’s school work that he started noticing gaps in their education. He said that was when he realised that the N80,000 he was paying as school fees per term did not match the quality of education they were getting.
“When my four-year-old boy, Tom, could not read ABC coherently, I began wondering how he came about the high marks the school was giving him. I went to the school and approached the proprietor, I was told she did not come to work and that was when one of the teachers gave me a shocker. She confessed most of the teachers are not trained. To my surprise, he said some of them were even still studying for their degrees. The teacher then advised me to look for a qualified teacher for private teaching for my twins if I want them to improve.”
Another teacher who crossed over from a school in Ipaja, a Lagos suburb, that was once listed as one of the top schools in the 2006 West African Senior Secondary School Examination (WASSCE), said the school was less than transparent with the way it prepared its pupils for the exam.
“Don’t be fooled by their result, he said. “I taught there. I know what they used to do,”the teacher said.
The lies the schools tell parents on the performance of their children are blamed on the parents, who many teachers say only want to see their children excelling. If the children fail, rather than address the cause of failure, parents change school as a quick fix measure,” a teacher said.
This is well captured by what happened in a particular school in Isolo, a Lagos suburb. A teacher there told The Nation that she reported the underperformance of a particular boy in the last terminal examination to the proprietor, who instructed the teacher to fail the pupil accordingly to get the parents’ attention to the boy’s education. However the reverse was the case.
“When the boy failed, his parents came to question why and they took him to another school. They did not even wait to discover the reasons and what they could do about it. Our proprietror insisted on the result so he was withdrawn,” she said.
Mrs Onyeka Ogoma, chairperson, National Association of Proprietors of Private Schools (NAPPS), Mushin chapter, confirmed the failure-then-withdraw practice by parents. Nevertheless, she said her school fails pupils when necessary.
She said: “The parents are watching us so if the child is not doing well, they will know and withdraw the child. We ensure we teach the children well and give them serious check. I have a family of six in my school, five of them failed and repeated in different classes in the same year and their father was happy. He said he didn’t know that people still have schools like this.”
Mr Alex Oni, former deputy chairman, Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT), said the failure-withdrawal syndrome was the reason some private schools do not grade pupils according to their positions in class.
“They know that if they ask a child to repeat, the parents may withdraw the child. That is one of the reasons they don’t use positions anymore; they know that using positions can annoy the parents. They are money centred,” he said.
Despite the shortcomings of private schools, many parents still prefer them to public schools, which they claim lack care monitoring.
Mrs Popoola Ajayi, a parent, said she cannot patronise public schools for these reasons.
“The government schools cannot help us. They don’t pay attention to the children. It is embarrassing to come to a school and find a child who should be studying selling things for her teacher,” she said.
To make public schools more attractive, another parent, Mrs Cecilia Oluchuckwu, who says two of her four children attend public schools, urged the government to address the problem of overpopulation.
“Governments should do something about overpopulation, she said. “I realise that my two children that attend public schools are more disciplined than the other two. Except for too many students crammed in poor classrooms, poor laboratories, and all that, I believe there is a future in public schools,” she said.
