Hello Nairalanders. This column was published in The Nation Newspaper today (22-02-07). What do you think about the topic?

Can you send your child to a public school?

www.nairaland.com is one website I love to visit when I am not too busy. If I visit when I am neck deep in work, I would delay production because I usually get so engrossed that I find it difficult to log off. While browsing the site, I often giggle to myself such that colleagues around tap me to inquire that all is well.

Nairaland is an online forum where Nigerians at home and in diaspora discuss topics that cover nearly, if not all, aspects of human endeavour. Click on any of these areas and you will find sub-topics often started by a member already being discussed. When a member starts a topic, it is called a thread. The threads on nairaland.com are as varied as anything could be varied…and contributors usually give very amusing and intelligent opinions.

As a stakeholder in the education sector, on account of my job, I am a regular visitor to the education forum of nairaland.

On one of such visits, I stumbled on a thread on Covenant University. Some contributors to the thread praised the private university initiative in general for opening up opportunities for more youths, and the institution in particular for providing quality education. Others condemned the owners of the school (Winners Chapel) for charging as much as N250,000 as/for tuition fees and accused the church of doing business and placing the school beyond the reach of the masses. The argument became heated and both sides kept giving good reasons to support their stand.

Finally, one person presented a view that I have often thought about but which, it seems, nobody is losing sleep over, and which has become worth highlighting now that the Federal Ministry of Education is canvassing for the organised private sector to adopt public primary and secondary schools.

“I think Covenant could be pretty expensive or cheap depending on what you are comparing it to,” said the noble Nairaland user. “If I compare it to a school in the United States, it is dirt cheap. If I compare it to private secondary schools in Nigeria like Vivian Fowler, Loyola Jesuit etc, it is also dirt cheap. It is only when it is compared to other public or state universities that it is considered expensive. My question now is that why is everybody complaining about Covenant and not complaining about the outrageous prices of secondary schools all over Nigeria? I am astounded as to how much my younger brother’s school fees cost…”

Last week, I had an interesting chat with a school owner/head teacher. She is a doctoral student of Educational Administration at the University of Lagos (UNILAG) and she is doing a study on private secondary schools as part of her thesis. In the course of her research she went to private secondary schools with a checklist of equipments meant to be available in their laboratories. She came up with three grades of private schools – the highbrow, the middlebrow and the lowbrow. She described the highbrow as those that charge very high fees and have all the facilities needed to cater for their pupils. The second grade, the middlebrow, she explained, are those that charge high and average fees but surprisingly do not have enough facilities to adequately cater for the pupils. Then the lowbrows, in her estimation, are doing a disservice though they don’t charge much because they do not have the facilities to offer qualitative education.
I am sure some parents would be thanking God that their children, by virtue of the amount they pay, are in the highbrow schools. But this educationist also said that most of these schools are overpriced. Using her words: “It (the fees) gets to that point that it just tapers off and the extra (money) is for the school.”

Yes. Many private primary and secondary schools are indeed very expensive. I still cannot understand why a toddler in nursery three would pay up to N90,000 per term. In one school in Ikeja that was the amount a parent was asked to pay to enroll her one year-old in the playgroup. Some secondary schools pay more than N1million in a session.

Now you see, we have a funny scenario. The highbrow schools charge too much. The middlebrow schools are not fully equipped and the lowbrow schools are just a little better than the neglected public schools.

The Education Minister, Mrs Obiageli Ezekwesili was in Lagos last week urging corporate bodies, faith based organisations, NGOs and the like to adopt public schools in an effort to arrest the decay in the schools.

I know many companies flashed their social responsibility report card at the minister. We applaud their efforts. But you see, public schools will not recover until those who run these organisations can enroll their children in them. If they are willing to do this, then what happens in these schools would become their concern. It would necessarily be their business that the roofs are leaking and there are no classroom furniture, toilets, computers, libraries, fans, school buses and the like. Then 90 per cent of what they once used to pay as fees could be devoted to providing some of these facilities. I believe if this can happen then community involvement would return.

Can you enroll your child in a public school? If you can, then public schools can be revived.

Yes, I can.

You didn't provide a link to the page were you copied this from.

I did not provide a link because that column was not posted online. I got it from the newspaper. The paper has a website though (www.thenationonlineng.com).
But what do you think about the topic anyway?

I think sending a child to public school is equivalent to asking overstressed teachers to do your parental job.

no not until public school impove their way of teacher and if i send my child 2 a public school he will mot learn anything

For what now? No i cant send my kids to a school where:
100 or more student in class to 1 teacher- without a mega phone o!
No zeal to teach
Teach are not or rarely paid and are likely to take that out on my kid
not proper pratiacal class-
no library
no proper feeding
NO HEALTH facility
Low quality control
The school care about school fees that students result and blah blah ablah!
Abeg abeg make the child sit at home and i will buy text book and hire teachers if i cant have them in a private school

Spoken like a true mother material. Parenting should never ever be outsourced. Children require parents' attention.

Tx for noticiing-
seun

The truth is that many private schools are overpriced. I am not against private schools. No, I even attended a rather expensive one in those days. But i won't spend my money as an alumnus on that school because as far as i'm concerned they don't need it. They charge enough as school fees.
I believe that parents can spend less and still get good quality. More importantly I think it pays to educate a child in a balanced environment where its not as if only one socio-economic class exists in the school. In my days at FGGC B/City, we had girls from very rich, rich, medium/middle class and poor backgrounds, and we all stayed together. We all slept on bunk beds, cut grass, did morning duty/labour and ate the same food in the dinning hall. That way a growing child knows that life is not a bed of roses.
I think it all bores down to the selfish mentality that seems to bug nearly, if not all, Nigerians. We only think of ourselves. Most of our parents went to public schools or missionary schools that were not so expensive back then,
And they are aware that most of those schools are no more. If we as Nigerians are more community centred, then public schools would be restored.

I admire Queen's College, Yaba, for one thing - commitment of all stakeholders to one goal - maintaining excellence in educating the girl child.

The WAEC results for 2006 recently released showed that QC returned the best results nationwide.

I've noticed that the PTA of the school would do anything to make their girls comfortable.

The Old Girls association don't joke with their alma mater. They monitor the school closely and do all they can to ensure that good principals and adequate number of teaching staff are sent there. They donate prizes, implement projects and attend events organised by the school. They've succeeded in passing on the torch for 80 years.

The school management and staff, knowing the kind of pedigree the college boasts of, cannot but put in their best.

This kind of working relationship is needed in all the public schools.

in america i can , but i dont about nigeria

if i live in nigeria then i will not send my child to a public school bcoz i knw they don'tlearn anything"God forbid my child will now turn into an taout ". but here in london i can eventhough they say in england kids are not trained properly. i still think they knw how to deal with kids better.

not the high schools, the one in from of my house looks like Guantanamo. no windows, the students look like ,

I am a math teacher and i must tell you that i know so much about public school and and private school.I teach in the private school.
Let me go straight to the point.I can not send my child to a public school for now.Things are so bad there.The govt must do something fast.

sesan oguntade

www.mathtutoronline..com
www.rockmotivation..com
www.internetdollars.biz

Vivian Fowler and LJC are secondary schools not Universities, comparing them to Covenant is <<wrong>>

nosa101:

Vivian Fowler and LJC are secondary schools not Universities, comparing them to Covenant is <<wrong>>

Nosa, I think u're the one who needs to examine what u just wrote, compare it to the content of the topic, take time to read the post on covenant university so u can see where the author quoted from. If you do just that, you'll realise that your comment was totally off the track.

It's not done o!Don't even think about it,do you want to start a new breed of Area boys?.Not until the standard of education in such schools is at par with what is obtainable in private schools,should one even think about it.

Private schools in Nigeria are grossly over priced and over rated. Take my childrens school - Lagos prep in Ikoyi. They charge you a non-refundable development fee of 1000 pounds per child even if your child is there for a day. Their school fees per term range from approx 950 to 1300 pounds. All for what? There is nothing special about this school. The front of the school is full of pot holes and gullies  which fill with water when it rains and believe me only 4x4's can negotiate it. Even though they were made for that type of terrain, believe me they sometimes struggle. The school is rich enough to sort out the road - even a mere sand fill

Teachers assisstants take classes sometimes, which shouldn't be the case
They have chess as a core subject when it should only be an after school activity. They claim to be running a British curriculum but nowhere in Britain is chess a core subject.

All they are after is money, money and more money. Recently they changed the PE kit without so much as a notice and parents are expected to shell out yet again. The money miss-road-parents are ever happy to shell out for this and that. What ever they ask for one parent is ever so willing to shell out. It makes me sick! If I were getting value for money I would not have minded. My children are no better educationally attending a school that charges over a grand a term in fees.

I am now stuck there as if I go to another so called private school I will have to shell out an astronomical amount of money on 'development fees'. If I were not in Nigeria temporarily I would not dream of sending my children there. I just wanted them not to be at a disadvantage when we return.

Private schools in Nigeria are grossly over priced and over rated. Take my childrens school - Lagos prep in Ikoyi.

Everything in Lagos is over-priced, especially in VI and Ikoyi. Private schools elsewhere are more affordable.

Yes I can but i will not only rely on that. i will also teach him/her at home myself or higher a private teacher for him.her.

Ollie39:

Private schools in Nigeria are grossly over priced and over rated. Take my childrens school - Lagos prep in Ikoyi. They charge you a non-refundable development fee of 1000 pounds per child even if your child is there for a day.  

Ollie, I think u can get value for your money and have lots of change left if u patronise another school.  There are so many good schools run by professionals where u wont pay half as much.  i think u can make a change - even if u're here temporarily, and I don't think u should worry about them being disadvantaged, the curricula is not inferior.

@ topic NO

my dad went to a state school(secondary) and federal (university)
the school is now effectively dead

i went to a federal school

i suspect that , going by the trend in nigeria, by the time my kids are of age,
federal schools will be no go

my beef with private schools is that most of the peeps i know that went through them were masters of
partying, cliquing, but not of their books. i may be wrong, but i don't think private schools (in nigeria) are an environment that nuture learning.i think most people send their kids to the schols as a status thing, not an education thing

I also have a quote from a george Orwell book( a clergyman's daughter)

the motto of all private schools is "its the fees I'm after"

how do private school students perform in NECOand JSCE against their public school counterparts? thats the real question.

Nothin do public school my fellow Nigerians,
80% of the GREAT people in Naija pass thru it (OBJ, AWOLOWO, MKO, AZIKIWE, YA'ARADUA, )
so we shouldnt let our public schools fade away like dat,
instaed we should promote 'em by givin scholarships, providing reading materials,
all ghetto raised in this forum should flash back to our past
SAVE THE PUBLIC SCHOOL
SCHOOL IS SCHOOL,

what are you guys talking about?

I attended a public school, Mayflower School Ikenne and am sure I cant get outwitted by a Private school person anytime anyday

beta go ask Tai Solarin wherever he is

What gives you the impression that Mayflower school is a public school? Wasn't Tai Solarin the owner?

@Seun

most times you amaze me

are u telling me that I went to a school for 6yrs without actually being able to decipher whether its a private or public school

anyway for your information, Mayflower School had been Govt property since over 30 yrs ago, though Tai Solarin really fought tooth and nail to keep the school his own property, like it had been since 1956, but as usual Govt had its way,
however Tai Solarin had sole powers over the boarding facilities called THE STUDENTS SECOND HOME

Of course I can. There is no option. Just like 90% of Nigerians. If you mean, Do I like to send my kid to a public school? Maybe not. If you'll pay for their private education.

I think there's a market for affordable private primary schools charging NGN 2000 per month per pupil. These schools could possibly be rolled out using a similar model suggested by The Spark Group (www.thesparkgroup.net) for India. This model might offer quality education for larger number of nigerian kids.

Why not, there are a thousand and one public schools with good standards out there. Just do your own research, at least I am a product of one of such before privatization.

It depends, so people send there kids to public schools cos thats what they can afford .others on the other hand do it cos its a family thang , like agsoba stuffs , family legacy,