As my own governor prepares to stablish free education in Imo state, I've come to wonder, what's the big deal?


I'm in America, so pardon my lack of knowledge and fill me in where im wrong, but to my understanding school fees for public schools are what boils down to 70 dollars a year, and primary education is free.

Unless things are different in different states there's few people in my state that can't afford 70 dollars annually for a kid to go to his last 3 or 4 years of school.

Still, my main point is NOBODY is sending their kids to public school anymore. It appears from the trend i've seen on the ground that everyone is sending their kids to private school and pridefully paying the fee. The governor himself would slap me if i told him to send his kid to a public school, so why do we continue to decieve ourselves and claim free education is going to cure anything when the school that will be free are still in abysmal shape and nobody wants to go to them willingly.

I say abolish government schools and only have private schools because the government is far to incompetent and corrupt to magnage something as vital as the education of our kids.

Are you willing to run a private school?
Are you really sure more folks go to private than public schools?

Majority of students in Nigeria still flood public schools. Millions are out of school by the way(as in not attending at all). I believe the problem however remains that of low quality and not high cost of education as concerns the public system.

Kobojunkie:

Majority of students in Nigeria still flood public schools. Millions are out of school by the way(as in not attending at all). I believe the problem however remains that of low quality and not high cost of education as concerns the public system.

I would agree that the majority of people probably send their kids to public skill(where they can). However, I would agree most people would turn towards private if they could help it. Suffice to say, the state of education, including private, is pretty abysmal and is not going to change with more state intervention. I think having education further in the private sector may be a good thing. We may even have business/institutions competing to providing the best educational methods like cell phone carriers. Who said kids have to sit in a class room for six hours, 9-12 years of their life to obtain a good education. Have a look at this guy for example.

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/sugata_mitra_the_child_driven_education.html

Competition would drive the cost lower and provide a better quality product. In that way our education model may even be able to surpass that of other nations that use more arcane methods. Such a thing would open up commercial opportunities never before seen. Because most nations are loath to relax their educational systems, parents may just choose to send them to Nigeria to obtain a better quality education for the cheap. It is no more far fetched then people going to countries like Costa Rica or India for cheaper medical services.

Still, a overall change in Nigeria would have to take place before any such things are possible and I just do not see that happening.