ALTERNATING EDUCATION WITH IGNORANCE IN BENUE STATE

TOR SOLOMON GBA

08181089111

RESEACHER ON TIV- FULANI RELATIONSHIP SINCE 1900

 

A school proprietor in Adikpo, “London”, Kwande Local Government Area wrote the Motto of his college that “If You Think Education is Expensive, Try Ignorance.” By youthful exuberance there appeared a comparison of equals; a captivating caption that never rang a bell. With advancement in both age and learning, this seemed abandoning a veritable asset for a destructive enigma. The higher one went in maturity and education, it became apparent that the distinction between education and ignorance was incomparable, polarized and repulsive as magnetic poles.

Regrettably, the Benue State Government seems to be alternating education with ignorance by handing over private schools to their owner’s without cogent appraisal of underpinning consequences or planning. This decision would not only disparage, destabilize, disorient our educational system as well as overall development of the state.

A glimpse into the history unveils that the administration of General Olusegun Obasanjo started the downturn of improper funding of education. This sparked the “Ali must Go” demonstrations at all levels of learning for the removal of the Minister of Education, Col. Ahmadu Ali in 1979. This dictatorial ambush of education and legacy was bequeathed for the succeeding administration of President Shehu Shagari in 1979.

In Benue State, the administration of Governor Aper Aku (1979- 1983) took far reaching measures to promote teaching and learning. There was the spread of Colleges of Education, Teachers’ Colleges and day secondary schools which became a negation of negations as educational development. Things degenerated with the neglect of teachers’ welfare and accumulated salary arears.

Aku’s policy aimed at massive literacy was punctuated by shortage of staff, cheapening and lowering of standards. School children sluggishly went to school abstained at slightest excuse got engaged in truancy or hawking during village markets with uniforms. Both teachers and non- teaching staff were bedeviled by laziness and absenteeism with many resorting to trading or drinking during schooling hours. In the end, Aku did not achieve his vision of transforming Benue State educationally.

Another blow to education in Benue State had been the spread of private schools. One needed just four walls of a block, a thatched huts and one teacher to become a proprietor. Commentaries saw the establishment of school as a sign of unity of purpose and development leading to a wave of community secondary schools. Such schools also faced the challenge of infrastructure and manpower leading to the recruitment of idling community members or drop out with unprofessional and ill- training to teach or manage schools.

The novelty of aiding proprietors of schools was to off-set or at least lessen the burden of wage bill and provision of basic infrastructure known as grant-in-aid. This was a mark of acknowledge appreciation and encouragement of private and community synergy in the task of developing education. On the contrary, private proprietors took advantage of this gesture of government to see education as a profitable industry aimed at maximizing wealth and exploiting poor people to patronized their institutions.

While private schools’ proprietors were swimming in the euphoria of squanderances, government was becoming restive with the escalating cost of education. As the wage bill increased, more schools sought the grant-in-aid to support them. As the population increased the pressure on existing institutions increased, creating the need to establish more. Quackery was equally one attendant consequence. Governments had come to perceive that it was not fulfilment of an obligation to the citizenry but that she was rendering privileged service and doing justice to the people. This informs the solace of government to gradually disengage in funding that has climaxed into the recent decision of returning private school(s) to their owner(s).

It is puzzling that anytime government detects abuses and run riot with her institutions or partners, she neglects the plight of the poor, less privileged and vulnerable persons. The return of schools to their proprietors is as good as subjecting the people to whimsical dictates of private proprietors. This is relinquishing her role in child development and negating on her contractual relationship with the electorates to offer credible government.

If Aku had bequeathed certain legacies to the state that have had human deficiencies, these would obviously need amelioration. Regrettably, Atom Kpera in his campaign went on a scrapping spree to take out nearly almost all the gains made by his predecessor, Aku. The scrapping of the Federal University Colleges of Education and the Teacher’s Colleges nailed the casket of turning manpower needs of schools at all levels in the state. In  order to meet such need, there was an option for schools than to pick the available material instead of the professionally relevant and needful. And , while unemployment grew, one could just find a job in any of the schools for just a pittance to a living.

Since Governor Kpera’s detach on education, several governors never did any tangible effort to revive it until Rev. Moses Adasu came aboard the ship of statecraft with the establishment of the Benue State University. Yet, after Adasu, the neglect persisted with the educational institutions becoming nearly private owner base for those in charge. Recently, Governors have continued to pay lip service to the sector. With embellishment speeches at every given opportunity such as budgetary presentation. As usual, teachers are worse off with each administration leaving a backlog of salary and relegating them to second class citizens.

The policy of returning private schools that have been granted-aided by government is suicidal and must mean disservice to the people of Benue State as well as generations to come. Government should have instituted an informed debate on such sensitive issue to derive a wider perception. Yes, a committee was put in place but it did not have enough reach, more so as it comprised those who had vested interest in reclaiming their schools. This compromised their neutrality-just as the intent and purposes of that committee did not express or represent the wishes of the generality of Benue people.

There is a consolation agreement, an apologia that other states like Cross River and Lagos have returned schools to their owners. But there is curious puzzle!  Have we attained the standard of education as these states? Do we have a comparison in our per capital income with these states? Are we abreast with indices of progress gained in their states? Cross River, for instance, as an oil producing state has series of educational programs, scholarships scheme and infrastructural policies among other things to support parents or students.  The scheme in Lagos state has faced challenges and is likely to collapse as witnessed by the collapse of school building due to quackery.

In a program on Radio Benue, Makurdi. Prof. Dennis Ityavyar, the Commissioner for Education talked of establishing more schools before effecting the handover of private ones. One wonders where the magic wand would come from with the dearth of funds. Pensioners are owed years of their entitlements. Primary school teachers and local government staff are owed for months; state civil servants are equally not excluded in the debacle of salary arrears of six months put behind. Prof. Ityavyar admitted that the government Girls Secondary School, Makurdi that has been at a temporary site for decades would not be moved to its permanent site due to paucity of funds. Other government schools across the state are in shambles. What an irony! Any move to build new schools now would be a fiasco or at best an unimaginable stress on government and unpleasant burden to the incoming one.

Merely preparing Benue State post primary and tertiary schools depicts a pictorial of embarrassment. The school where professor Ityavyar and myself graduated from would have been in shambles if not for the Parents- Teachers Association and Government Secondary School, Gboko Old Students Association (G-GOSSOSA), our set single handedly renovated laboratories and donated computers to aid science education. In my home town, the principal of Government Secondary School, Korinya carted away all the beds for boarding students when the Parents- Teachers Association was planning to rehabilitate the hostels for the boarding system.

Challenges of Education in Benue State

Undoubtedly, series of problems stare us in the face towards having qualitative and quantitative education. These range from poverty, poor school management to under funding and avarice. The list is legion and legible.

Government is oblivious of the growing impoverishment of the masses such that relinquishing schools to private owners to determine fees would be suicidal. Free education is least contemplated now though not impossible but there should be a way to check excesses of private schools’ proprietors. Certainly, government cannot set up or takeover schools in all places but cognizance has to be taken of location; the flora and fauna. Till date, there are communities that cannot be reached due to distance or road network. Proximity and accessibility are obtrusive to many rural areas. Thus, where there is missionary, community efforts fees ought to be regulated in line with the income of the inhabitants.

Side by side with the regulation of fees is the evaluation of infrastructure such as classrooms, hostels, recreation and healthy living facilities. The upsurge of private schools in make shift huts, uncompleted buildings or abandoned structures is unhealthy for learning, hazardous and illicit. A husband walked up to start a school in his garage in order to checkmate the unemployment of his wife, child or siblings. There appears to be no inspection before if at all the establishment was legally done. In some cases, where inspections are done, deficiencies are overlooked due to certain underpinning considerations or actions behind the table.

Indeed, government, from all intent and purposes, does not seem to know the number of private schools in Benue State at all. Consequently, many of such private primary, post-primary and tertiary institutions operating in the state do not deserve to be in existent. Beside operating at derogatory and inhabitable locations, others are found on small space such that staff and school children squat in the same room. It is said that “all work without play makes Jack a dull boy” but many schools do not have facilities for recreation, physical and health training among other basics. Many children do not know or experience Children’s Day and Independence Day Celebrations because the practices are not rehearsed or thought. At such, friendship was cultivated and standard of schools evaluated by their performances in parade games.   All these are before our leaders who have benefitted from but, are working to handover private schools to their proprietors for “effective management.” Private schools in addition, are gaining notoriety for policies. That are inimical to the growth of a child like the introduction of extra lesson. Children who do not take extra lesson face challenges of low average or poor performance evaluation. One may ask, what is there that cannot be taught between 8AM and 2PM that would be done between 2PM and 4PM. Two things are clear here. One, some parents want to keep their children or wards in school until their closure from work or market hence they prefer extra lesson. Two, schools how turned extra lesson compensation to alleviating their staff wage bill. Extra lessons were organized at the approach of external or final examination to enable children make up any shortfall or refresh them as a sort of revision. The fact that our children are over stretched is causing academic saturation while staff relax during regulated time to make up during extra lessons. In the end, who loses, if not the child?

In addition, private schools are introducing undesirable practices in schools that tend to increase the cost of education. A private school, even if dilapidated or ill-staffed claims standards and charge high fees for assorted uniforms and books. In many schools, athletics have taken precedence over teaching and learning thereby compromising excellence. One is not advocating dirty or poor appearances but these should never be at the expense of academic standard. Some schools include sports wears only to emulate others even when they do not have sporting facilities only to extort parents by exorbitant fees on such uniforms. The rationale for the sport wear should not be for variety in appearance but essentially use value.

Furthermore, due to untrained teaching staff, private schools have pervaded the culture of employing unscholarly and unprofessional teachers, some of the graduates from universities, polytechnics and colleges of education are employed by private schools cheaply because employment bites. And, some of the job seekers as they wait to get a juicy or better employment merely hibernate, albeit reluctantly, without giving their best. Others among them do not have anything to offer as they by themselves are not properly grounded in the fields they are assigned to handle. This accounts for the predicament we face in the development of Mathematics and English education.

More so, suffering and talking teaching jobs in primary or post primary institutions by both private and public schools to fulfil all righteousness, there is the introduction of unethical conducts by untrained teachers. Cases of indecent dressing, cultism, rape, sexual abuse, indiscipline, drunkenness and examination malpractices have to be adduced to the infiltration of schools by unprofessionalism. Both the proprietor and staff are victims in this bid. Imagine a private proprietor telling a parent to be giving tips to a teacher as a motivation. teachers encourage offensive conducts from such pupils or students to even awarding marks to please “generous parents.”

Equally, fundamental in defacing our educational system is poor infrastructure even in government owned schools and grant-aided-schools. If not for the efforts of National Primary Education Commission and Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND) our schools might have been incapacitated beyond what obtains now. Even then, continuity is not guaranteed because NPEC and TETFUND are describing a mismanagement, incompletion of projects and refusal to pay counterpart funds. In this century, one surprisingly finds pupils taking lessons in thatched huts, mangled block walls, family garages among other “unacademic” environment.

Astonishingly, government agencies have been exhibiting ineptitude in shutting such schools as it would be tantamount to kettle calling a pot black. But then if the state Government is paying salaries of her schools and grant-aided-ones, what is happening to various fees that are collected? Yet, the infrastructural development of schools has brought double jeopardy on parents who pay fees including the Parents- Teacher Association levies but still embark on separate PTA projects and engagement of PTA and staff.

The supervisory bungling does also affect tertiary education as they operate directly under a Director in the Ministry of Education. We have had the State Universal Basic Education Board SUBEB for primary education and Teaching Service Board (TSB), Adult and Non Formal Education Board (ANFED) for special education, Scholarship Board, Science and Technical Education Board and State Examination Board but nothing of sort for tertiary education.

While the Benue State Government progresses with the policy of handing over private schools to owners, we should be reminded that even if education is expensive, we should not try ignorance. In advanced societies the state funds education as a matter of right with institutions, colleges, schools, polytechnics and universities modelled for the purpose of overall development. In that respect, the professional teaches and lecturers are engaged on full time basis to make literacy level to serve as the function of not just educational advancement but also a requisite catalog for measuring economic development with gross domestic product (GDP) and welfare means. This implies that essential of education should be for the purpose of development, poverty alleviation and welfare promotion. Education should serve as a component of both growth and development other than private profitability.

Yes, education is expensive. Yes, education requires synergy. Yes, the private proprietor is a veritable partner. Yes, the citizen is paramount. Yes, government is for all of us. However, if we think education is expensive, we cannot contemplate alternating it with ignorance. I remember an elder. Mr Ahire Koror, one of the earliest educationalist told my father, Gbo Ikyo, his orchard and consummate farmer that he should not think he is ignorant or illiterate because his children were educated. Pa. Koror went further to stress that an educated person’s heap looks better than that made by any illiterate. This implied that, firstly, your child’s education is your own and secondly, what an educated person does in which ever ramification outclasses the one by an illiterate.

In concordance with the above, when an educated person engages in a demeaning act, they are branded as “educated illiterate” or better still, we say he or she went through the school but the school did not go through him or her. We often say someone behaves as not passing through the four corners of a school. We cannot afford to allow our education to degenerate into oblivion with the excitement of returning of private school to their owners, no matter the temptation or pressure.