Help! Public Primary, Secondary Schools Gradually Going Into Extinction in South West. By Sola Olatunji

The late Nigerian sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, warned that “education is a necessary tool to fight ignorance in order to escape poverty.’ Renowned educationist, Prof Babs Fafunwa says ‘education is the act of training a child and building his capability so that when he becomes an adult he or she can be useful to himself or herself, the family and the society.’ Social critic Dr Tai Solarin aptly added that ‘education is the training of a child to break the shackles of ignorance so that she or he can become self-reliant in the society’.

To summarize the above, it won’t be wrong to say that education is the bedrock upon which a society can be transformed from the state of obscurity to modernity and prosperity.

In Awolowo’s words, education is the social weapon to fight ignorance and poverty. And if a child is educated he or she will be able to break the shackles of poverty and flourish in society. This formed the kernel of his administration as the Premier of the old Western Region when in 1954 he introduced the much cherished policy of free and compulsory  primary education in the region.

I watched a trending video of Chief Joseph  Akinlaja recently  narrating how he became a beneficiary of free and compulsory primary education in the Western Region. Today, Akinlaja completed his two or three terms in office as a parliamentarian, which would have been impossible without formal education. So many southwest leaders of today were the products of free education policy of Awolowo.

Many decades after his demise, he is still being talked about daily because of his many enduring legacies. Awolowo’s intention then was to address the social disparity in the society by ensuring that both the children of the rich and the poor can access education to be able to fight poverty, access opportunities and coexist peacefully in the society. That explains why in the South West, education continued to define the socio-economic and political directions of the region to date. It also justified the proliferation of higher institutions far ahead of other parts of the country.

Awolowo was, no doubt, that oracle who saw tomorrow and prepared our sons and daughters well ahead as well as other group residents in the Western Region. This landmark policy revolutionized education in the South West and has since positioned the region at vantage spot in all spheres of human endeavors.

In his strategy and efforts to implement free education, Awolowo established schools in the remotest parts of the region and recruited teachers to train the students. He provided  teaching aids and also meted out punishment to parents who prevented their wards from going to schools.

Through this laudable policy ,children of nobody from the remotest parts of the region were able to go to school and with some of them in high places and doing pretty well in their choice of trade today. With this policy, the South West region has since become so sophisticated and unarguably the most civilized part of the country.

After the demise of Awolowo, several political leaders that emerged have continued to make efforts to sustain the free education policy at the primary and secondary school levels, but because of their inability to get the policy right, we have continued to experience serious decline in our education development.  But the fame is running out fast. We need urgent surgical attention otherwise, it might be bye to public schools at the primary and secondary schools level in the region. A region that was once respected and cherished with her model of education is in dire need of help to recalibrate its education from its present precarious and pitiable state to where it used to be.

It’s very sad that many of our political actors who enjoyed free and compulsory  education are the ones  supervising the obituary of public schools (primary and secondary) across the region.  Most of the primary and secondary schools established by the late icon have collapsed with some of them occupied by reptiles.

Those that still exist have no infrastructure like good physical structure, computer  or science laboratory.

More disappointing is the fact that few existing schools have no teachers. Our political actors who ordinarily  should not have been able to attain their present status if not the free education are now focusing on roads and white elephant projects rather than train and educate the young ones so that the sons and daughters of nobody can become somebody like them. If nothing urgent is done to arrest this ugly trend in the South West, we might be singing the dirge for public primary and secondary schools education, pretty soon.

Today,  what you see across the communities where you find primary and secondary schools is that ,schools with 500 students have less  than 9 teachers with parents even have to recruit their own teachers to teach students in public schools. What is wrong with some of our leaders that once they get to public office, they no longer think right about the problems of the citizens?

This pitiable situation of our public primary and secondary schools in the region has continued to provide opportunity for private individuals to set up  private schools in droves .

In the public domain, there is this fear that government is the one frustrating public education in the region because they are gradually withdrawing from funding it.

They are systematically encouraging private individuals to set up schools. And I am bold to say that some of our leaders have lost touch with the reality. I hope this will be denied very quickly allay fear of the public and prevent unwanted upheavals in our society.

Sad enough, most of the private school owners are in public offices. Their mission is to kill  public schools while they smile to their banks every year. It is time we changed this narrative in the public space about the pitiable conditions of our public primary and secondary schools. A visit to some of these schools will reveal that lack of teachers, teaching aids, computers, laboratory facilities and physical infrastructure are the major problems

In all of this, we can beat our chest and say Lagos State stands out in the South West region and Nigeria. I am not saying, they don’t have some issues to sort out in their education system, but they are keeping the flag flying and we are of the view that if they can continue to sustain the trend ,the sky will be their limit in education especially primary and secondary schools development.  They are a model to other states in the South West and Nigeria.

I personally do not cherish this philosophy of building houses everywhere without building people.  It’s sad that our region that was once cherished and respected with public schools dotted everywhere, is now being replaced with private primary and secondary schools so that the children of nobody will not be able to go to school in future.

What is more worrisome is that the owners of these private schools trying to send public schools into extinction and political authorities in this region were also beneficiaries of Awolowo’s free education.

On this note, I know President Bola Tinubu is aware of this trend, and he should be reminded about the danger it portends in our society now and in the future.

While my story was never designed to attack the private school owners, I am writing this story to encourage the government to sustain public schools side by side with private schools.

The government must be alive to its responsibilities by building more public schools if need be or refurbished the existing ones, providing teaching aids, and recruiting teachers regularly to be able to run effective education systems.

We must strive hard to restore our lost glory in education within the region so that we don’t destroy generational legacies created by the late visionary leader, Chief Obafemi Awolowo.

.Otunba Sola Olatunji, Chairman, Ikale Heritage Development Association, IHDA, writes from Lagos