Federal Government Colleges must ensure equal access to all Nigerians
The ongoing dispute over the purported increase of tuition fees in Nigeria’s Federal Government Colleges is a stark reminder of the inequalities and unsettled issues that have continued to riddle the nation’s educational system.
The national executive of the National Parents Teachers Association of Federal Government Colleges (NAPTAFEGC) has protested the increase of fees in the colleges from N20,000 to N75,000, which took place on June 1. It complained that the increase was an additional encumbrance on already-overburdened parents who had children in the schools, and urged the National Assembly to compel the Federal Ministry of Education to reverse it. The issue has been further complicated by the response of the Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, that he did not authorise the increase.
This confrontation exposes the unstable foundations upon which the federal colleges were built and have continued to live with. Initially meant to provide a means of uniting young Nigerian students from the country’s different ethnic groups in an atmosphere of intellectual excellence, mutual respect and keen competition, the so-called “unity schools” were supposed to provide a model of standard public education in Nigeria alongside the top missionary schools. They were to set the ideals all other secondary schools would aspire to. In other words, the federal colleges were meant to be a means to an end, not an end in itself.
Tragically, this noble objective has been perverted into a less high-minded goal: that of providing quality education for the offspring of prominent citizens who could not send them abroad. In this regard, NAPTAFEGC is being disingenuous when it moans about parents on the national minimum wage of N18,000 not being able to continue sending their children to unity schools.
While the fee increase is important in itself, the Federal Government Colleges need to make a far more fundamental change first: that of opening up to deserving students of all social classes, and not just the privileged few. It is difficult to see how the original goal of national unity can be achieved if the bulk of students come from a starkly unrepresentative spectrum of Nigerian society.
Entrance examinations to unity schools should be widely publicised and made more accessible to primary school students whose prior educational performance equips them to take part in them. Those who meet the entry requirements should be admitted; successful candidates who are indigent could be offered scholarships whose continuation would depend on continued excellent performance.
As for the fee-increment issue, both the Federal Government and NAPTAFEGC will have to come to terms with reality: the former does not seem to understand that it should no longer be involved in the running of secondary schools; the latter must realise that the cost of education cannot be unaffected by rises in the general cost of living in the country.
The problem can best be resolved through negotiation and compromise. The education ministry must meet with NAPTAFEGC to arrive at increases which are not as high as the current 300 per cent hike, while the association should continue its commendable efforts in the provision of basic facilities in the schools.
The only permanent solution to such periodic fee-increases, however, is for the Federal Government to withdraw from the direct management of secondary schools altogether. A programme of privatisation or commercialisation should be worked out for the Federal Government Colleges; many occupy prime real estate in states across the country, and are proud heirs to distinguished educational traditions which would be attractive to many investors.
If the process is put together competently and honestly, there is no reason why unity schools cannot be run with the same profitability that many privately-owned schools already enjoy.
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